Business Facts & Daily Fun Facts about the World of Business

There are many types of business models for every kind of business.

• Traditional business models include direct sales, franchising, advertising-based, and brick-and-mortar stores.
• Hybrid models include businesses that combine internet retail with brick-and-mortar stores or sporting organizations.

A very important step when starting to work as a freelancer is to actually call your business as what is: a ‘freelance business’.

These kind of words encourage your clients to perceive you as being trustworthy while giving you a better feeling of ownership.

Specific vocational skills are essential - coders should be able to code, salespeople should be able to sell. But, we also need soft skills. By only focusing on the seemingly essential skills, we've reduced the value of the skills that actually matter. 
What separates thriving organizations from struggling ones is the "soft" skills. These skills are not negotiable.

1. Investing in Privately Held Businesses: These are businesses that have no public market for their shares. They can be a high-risk, high-reward proposition for the entrepreneur.
2. Investing in Publicly Traded Businesses: Private businesses sometimes sell part of themselves to outside investors, in a process known as an Initial Public Offering, or IPO. When this happens, anyone can buy shares and become an owner.

A business model shift is a deliberate and systematic move toward more relevance and value for customers, and as a result growth of your organization. Business model shift can reflect bold moves into wholly new business models. 

But more often, shifts start as small moves inside an existing business model that evolve into entirely new ways of creating value and relevance.

A best-in-class framework for ways of working, often called MLOps (machine learning operations), now can enable organizations to take advantage of these advances and create a standard, company-wide AI “factory” capable of achieving scale. Since MLOps is relatively new and still evolving, definitions of what it encompasses within the AI life cycle can vary.

One needs to examine the potential improvements from four essential angles: productivity and speed, reliability, risk, and talent acquisition and retention. 

Individual performance is generally considered important, but if the goal is shared, and the entire team is having the same objective, then one person cannot be bigger than the team.

This corporate lesson taken from sports provides humility to the individual star performer, who has to work for the team, and not for selfish reasons.

Manage the team in ways that support the diverse needs of different types of work.

You wouldn’t want a team that is all about creative ideas with no focus on implementing those ideas. Or one that is searching for the big win with no attention paid to the people involved in getting there.

Identify a market need or problem that you can solve with your product or service. Research your competitors and determine what sets your business apart.

• Cosmetics have been used since ancient times. Often they were used in religious ceremonies - as seen in ancient Egypt - or as cultural identification. Egypt's influence impacted the practices and uses of cosmetics throughout the rest of the ancient world.
• The spread of Christianity with its denunciations of pride and vanity coupled with a changing ideal of modesty also impacted the standards of beauty. While cosmetics did not totally fall out of favor, their use seems to have been greatly reduced and their use largely restricted to courtesans, actresses, the wealthy, and assorted "loose" women.
• During the Renaissance high born women including Queen Elizabeth, used them to whiten their faces into an ideal of pale perfection.

Over time, cosmetics moved a little closer to more common usage.

For physical products, this includes a description of how the product gets to the customer. Think about the suitability of channels for your product, and the authors recommend that startups pick just one channel that has the most potential for your product.

For web/mobile products, consider the advantages and disadvantages of different channels.

A business or corporation is made up of people. When only 20% of the people who make up the organization are fully engaged in their particular job in that organisation, most of the potential is left untapped. How to bring out this potential becomes a very important question.

Just as a professional athlete has a recognised physical talent or a natural aptitude to be strong in some area of physical performance, so does an individual have natural aptitudes or talents inherent to his or her particular personality type. These natural aptitudes need to be recognised and employed in the person’s work.

Define the business problem you are trying to solve.

• What results are you expecting from the process?
• What processes are used to solve this problem?
• Do you see AI improving the current process?
• What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will help track progress?
• What resources will be needed?
• Consider how to break down the problem into iterative sprints.

Once you have answers, then identify how you can solve the problem using AI.

• Be on time.
• Dress appropriately for an occasion.
• Address everyone respectfully, such as by their last name.
• Maintain eye contact, but do not stare.
• Speak clearly, confidently, and do not rush through your thoughts or sentences.
• Offer a firm handshake.

A business plan outlines your company’s goals, strategies, target market, financial projections, and marketing plan. It is an essential document that helps you stay on track and secure funding.

There are many studies that link empathy to business results. Empathy is correlated with increased sales, performance of the best managers of product development teams, and with enhanced performance in a diverse workforce.

It is predicted that those with a strong right-brain (interpersonal) qualities will have the upperhand in the Conceptual Age.

You can be a good business writer, just by following these five tips:

1. Write as you speak.

2. Read it aloud.

3. Ditch the Jargon.

4. Ignore the English Teacher.

5. Put your main points first.

• Productivity is what keeps businesses alive and incentives increases it. They might be an incentive in how your office culture is, or how you reward great work – but incentives that drive sales, outcomes and maximise effort will have a huge impact.
• Well rewarded employers work harder and longer while having lower attrition, sickness and absence levels. They are engaged in transforming your business and more likely to innovate. Incentives, financial or not, are the best way to harness great intentions and to show consideration.
• Nurture engagement and motivation. The latter can be influenced by factors like salary while the former is a function of pride related to work, level of responsibility, camaraderie, skills and values alignment with the businesses, and the company’s culture.

Find a company completely outside of your industry or market and look at what makes them different and what they do really well. Then adapt their model to your cause.

• Use the format "I want to be the \___________ of ____________" by putting a company name into the first blank and the area of your target market or innovation area into the second blank. For example, if you want to transform the fashion industry, you might try "I want to be the Netflix of fashion"_.
• Consider companies like Starbucks, Twitter, Domino's, NIKE, Home Depot, or any other innovative company.

Organizational and corporate performance is often likened to sports metaphors, as both share similar factors like leadership, communication, teamwork and achieving a certain goal.

Teamwork, and positive relationship between the team contributes to success, as various studies of football and the olympic teams have proved. The team bonding ensures unity and trust, resulting in better results.

Give up on the guesswork. Decide what you’re going to do this week, not this year. Figure out the next most important thing and do that. Make decisions right before you do something, not far in advance.

A written business plan is practically useless. Creating a plan allows you to feel that you can control everything that you actually cannot control, such as market conditions, competitors, customers, economy, etc.

Setting deadlines in long-term plans is also nonsense. You have all the complete information when you are doing something, but not before you have started.

Successful athletes and teams demonstrate the trait of resilience, and is supported by five psychosocial principles that guide the team towards excellence: Transformational leadership, shared team leadership, learnings, social identity and happy emotions.

Start by being aware of the differences between people that come from approaching things from diverse perspectives.

Sometimes the root cause of a particularly challenging relationship suddenly becomes clear when you look at it through this lens.

Team members should be encouraged to focus on personal growth outside of work, regardless of the form it takes.

Research shows that innovative companies are more successful when they hire entrepreneurial-minded people who have the drive to hustle on the side. Side-hustling workers tend to be passionate, which impacts their work in a positive way.

Consumer genetic testing is expanding as more than 26 million people have taken this kind of test, according to the MIT Technology Review.

Time and time again, we see disappointed customers expressing their thoughts in the public. 

I wonder why some businesses don't give a d*mn about their customer needs.

Things can escalate to inappropriate proportions if a problem is not solved immediately.

Dedicated customer service with technical support can save you a huge chunk of money by retaining valuable customers.

This pre-launch phase of the customer discovery process involves answering three critical questions:

• Have you found a product-market fit? You have to be sure your product is a good fit for the market. Is this something a lot of people need? How well does it solve the problem it’s made to solve? How many people would buy this thing?
• Who are your customers and how do you reach them?
• Can you make money and grow the company? Figure out if your solution is a winning proposition.

Crunch the numbers and do a rough estimate to see if there’s any chance that you can make money with your new product.

Transparency is about being open and honest. It's making it easy for customers to understand your business and what to expect when they buy from you.

The more transparent you are in your business, the more likely you are to meet your customer's expectations. When customers know what they'll get from you they are more likely to stay.

Pick business partners with high intelligence, energy, and, above all, integrity.

Don't partner with cynics and pessimists. Their beliefs are self-fulfilling.

1. Technology - Can you create a breakthrough technology instead of incremental improvements?
2. Timing - Is now the right time to start your particular business?
3. Monopoly - Are you starting with a big share of a small market?
4. People - Do you have the right team?
5. Distribution - Do you have a way to deliver your product?
6. Durability - Will your market position be defensible 10 and 20 years into the future?
7. Secrets - Have you identified a unique opportunity that others don't see?

Successful businesses know their customers, hear them clearly and frequently, deliver often, and measure the impact they're making.

• Will I enjoy doing my hobby on a deadline?
• Will I enjoy doing this with constant financial pressure to perform?
• Is this hobby my outlet for relaxation? Because, if it is, you're going to have to find something else to do to unwind.
• Am I up for a challenge? It can be deeply fulfilling, but it definitely won't be easy.
• Am I willing to sell myself? Be prepared to sell. It's a skill you will have to learn. 

• Partners Hypothesis: Involves listing all of the partners you’ll need and identifying what you need from them and what they’ll get in exchange.
• Revenue and Pricing Hypothesis: It includes the following questions: 1) How many items will we sell? 2) What’s the revenue model? 3) How much will we charge? 4) Is there evidence that this is worth pursuing?

One of the first steps to taking back your time and avoid overworking that leads to burnot is to have a clear vision about the goals you want to reach with your business.

When you have a clear vision, it will help you set reasonable expectations and decide how you'll structure your business to give you more time for your personal life.

Be conscious of your choices and make sure it fits the things that are important in your life.

Product Gamification

• Add new features to a product to make it addictive when used.

Marketing Gamification

• Gamify experiences to increase loyalty among existing clients.

Workplace Gamification 

• Train employees and help them grow into a leader.

Cryptocurrency is a digital payment system that bypass banks to verify transactions, making the financial processes more accessible and faster.

Cryptocurrency involves using virtual tokens or coins by private individuals and companies for operational and transactional purposes and investments.

There are two critical factors in judging business models. When business models don't work, it is because

1. the story doesn't make sense anymore, for example, the airline industry;
2. the numbers don't add up to profits, that is companies that suffered heavy losses or bankruptcy.

Business acumen is keenness and quickness in understanding and dealing with a "business situation" in a manner that is likely to lead to a good outcome.

Teaching business acumen to your hardworking folks will improve financial performance and leadership development and they'll know which questions to ask to your customers to truly add value to their relationship.

Ask questions to better understand the person and his/her motivations and values. 

Start with open-ended questions about family, pursuits outside of work, why they joined your organization, and why they have stayed. And share your own story.

The Kubler-Ross Change Curve is also true when it comes to business, work, or employment.  

Change can cause a lot of upheaval to the employees. If there are improvements to be made in systems and policies, the employees can't persist in their old ways. Only when the employees of an organization make personal change, can the company move ahead to reap the benefits.

A reliable tool to understand what people are going through.

• Stage 1: The employee will be in shock. They may need time to adjust. 
• Stage 2: When the gravity of the situation settles in, workers may feel fear from what lies ahead, which may turn to anger and resentment. Clear communication and support should remain the focus at this level.
• Stage 3: When employees understand that they must adapt, they may try to bargain with management, or learn as little as possible to adapt.  Don't rush employees to learn quickly or adjust fast.
• Stage 4: The learning phase may be uncomfortable for employees and could result in low energies due to low morale. 
• Stage 5: People finally start to embrace the change and start building new hopes and aspirations. 

It is normal for an organization to have goals related to revenue, profit and increasing the bottom line. But most organizations forget that the engine of achieving such goals is the people working for the company, and if the focus is on how fast the employees are growing personally, a successful business will come as a byproduct automatically.

A healthy, happy, stress-free and passionate team will ensure the expansion of your business.

• analyzing and the modeling of business processes
• digitization of processes and the implementation of artificial intelligence in companies
• close customer contact and cooperation with different departments
• usual background is a training or degree with an IT background

• Think about what you bring to the table. Knowing what you do well will also help you decide the things you should work on.
• Don't focus only on the skills that benefit you. Go for the intersection between goals that serve you and your employer or client.
• Keep you goals SMART. This technique helps you set goals that are specific (S), measurable (M), attainable (A), relevant (R) and timely (T).

• Motivational Tool: Incentive programs motivate employees to be more productive and consequentially increase the company’s earnings.
• Promoting Teamwork: members of teams that earn bonus according to collective productivity may support and encourage each other to perform at top levels. 
• Morale Boosters: if employees see a direct correlation between effort and earnings morale and job satisfaction increases while turnover and absenteeism decreases.
• Service Levels: employees competing for or striving to meet the goals of an incentive plan may provide higher degrees of service to your customers. 

• The executive summary should explain the opportunity, why it is timely, and how your company plans to pursue it. It should also describe your expected results and provide a thumbnail sketch of the company and the management team.
• The business plan should state the company’s goals and explain how investors will eventually cash out.
• Use as few words as necessary to get your points across. Avoid long, complex sentences whenever possible.
• Make your document easy to skim by using simple data visualizations, headings, subheads, white space, and numbered and bulleted lists to break up blocks of text.

• The most likely source of outside venture funding comes from so-called angel investors. Angels are high-net-worth individuals who provide early-stage capital to startup businesses. Networking is often the best way to connect with angels.
• Venture capital comes from an individual or a firm that seeks large capital gains through early-stage equity or equity-linked financing of high potential entrepreneurial enterprises. Entrepreneurs should not waste their time pursuing venture capital unless they have all the characteristics VCs look for.

Real business is an all-round read for startup founders across all sectors. The UK based title’s news coverage gives a broad overview of current affairs and issues affecting businesses: from updates on government policy to the state of the property market. 

• deal with the development of suitable IT solutions
• acts as a link between different company areas and coordinates the cooperation
• usually has a degree in business informatics, mathematics, computer science, or business administration. In addition, z. B. certification via the International Institute of Business Analysis is possible.

It can come from anything: a unique personal experience, witnessing a problem and seeing the possibility for a better solution, even walking down the street. 

Everyone harbors inner creativity, but the question is: How do I nurture that inspiration and take the next step?

Finally, people tend to believe that becoming a freelancer is nothing like starting a “real” business. However, like any other business, you need a solid foundation. That solid foundation involves forming an LLC.

LLC can protect your assets if you’re ever sued and give your business credibility. An LLC also allows you to customize your tax benefits to best suit your needs. Best of all, setting up an LLC is easy, inexpensive, and there aren’t any location requirements.

A business plan can help set you to think about your business as a whole. You'll determine your target audience, your mission, competition etc.

There are hundreds of free online business templates available. You can make it as in-depth or surface level as you want. 

• dealing with market developments and customer needs
• degree in economics or business informatics is therefore often required.
• in close contact with customers and defines common strategies

• Startup-phase financing is initially bootstrapped from personal savings, credit cards, and other personal sources of income, followed by friends and family and, in some cases, by small bank loans.
• Trade credit from suppliers is another low-cost source of financing.
• Other early sources of financing include online banks, accelerators, and crowdfunding.

1. The person who is doing business of his own is responsible for making his own decisions and Is free to implement.Whereas the person doing the job needs the approval of the boss to make decisions and implement them.
2. A person who is doing his own business if he makes some mistake during his work,there is no one to scold.While the person doing the job has to face scolding if he makes a mistake.
3. The person who is doing his own business,the time to go to office according to his business and personal needs can decide on its own. Whereas person doing the job has to go to his office at a specified time.

• Entrepreneurs are everywhere. 
• Irrespective of the size of the venture if you guys are working on a product that solves a problem in a new and better way then you are entrepreneurs
• Entrepreneurship is management. Startups need a new type of management that will handle the conditions of extreme uncertainty.
• Confirmation by facts. A startup needs continuous learning through a scientific approach and empirical hypothesis testing.

Every business today, no matter its size or legacy, faces four massive challenges.

• Clutter 
• Competition 
• Commoditization 
• Consumer consciousness.

• Product/Service: changing what you do or offer (e.g. mobile phone, OXO Company - Good Grip series)
• Position/Market: changing who consumes it (e.g. new user)
• Process: changing how you do it (e.g. Lean, Six Sigma, etc.)
• Paradigm: changing why it matters and what value it creates (e.g. platform (iTunes) and organizational culture (fat or decentralized)

• Online marketing strategies have become very sophisticated. The Internet uses a huge amount of data collected from clicks to produce a taste fingerprint for every consumer that uses a Web site or app.
• Customer reviewing is lay expertise and not trustworthy. We often find ourselves identifying with one-star hotheads. We want to know if things go wrong, how bad it will be. High number ratings may reflect "positivity bias."

More than 90,000 products generate about $30 billion every year in the United States. 

But even though supplements are popular, there is limited evidence that they offer any significant health benefits - the health benefits are negligible or nonexistent for the average, healthy person.

Goal setting is vital to any successful freelance business. Without goals, it's difficult to move in the right direction.

• What do you want to achieve as a freelance business owner?
• What are your long-term goals?
• What are your monthly and quarterly goals?

Setting small, actionable goals can help you accomplish more than you thought possible.

Profits from your freelancing career can't simply be added into your personal bank account for the following reasons:

• Mixing personal and business finances can lead to an impossible task at tax season.
• You can be personally liable for lawsuits against your business.
• You'll fail to build business credit.

When you go freelance, open up a business checking account and get a business credit card.

Farmer markets have increased exponentially over the last two decades, while food trucks, those ‘exotic/organic/delicious meals on wheels’, had combined revenue of USD 1.2 billion in 2012.

Cooking shows are huge and wide-ranging, while social media accounts of certain food photographers, or foodtographers, have followers in the count of millions. Dedicated food imagery websites are doing well, making food photography rival even the selfie craze.

Chaos theory tells us it's impossible to predict the future. We can't see the black swan events or unexpected technology, but we can do a Monte Carlo analysis and see the major pathways.

Reasons people get the future so wrong:

1. They dedicate about five minutes to looking at something before they form an opinion on it.
2. It goes against everything people understand about the world.
3. Because it challenges their position of power. They can't see clearly because they are the main beneficiaries of the current system. 
4. They mistake opinion for reality.

When starting a project that requires time, energy and resources, the cost-benefit ratio is a good rule for deciding if the plunge is worth it.

One has to think about the risk in terms of probability, while also keeping in mind what is at stake: Will the effort, time, money and resources that are spent go down the drain or will all of it still provide value in case the primary goal is not reached?

Identify the skills and roles you need to fill and recruit talented individuals who share your vision and can help you achieve your goals.

• Business relationships. Limit personal conversations at the office on a need-to-know basis. Be a good team player, don't make annoying sounds that might distract others, and offer to assist coworkers if they need help.
• Proper attire. Know how to dress in any situation.
• Getting ahead. Show up on time, do a good job, and maintain a positive attitude.
• Office Cubicles. Be polite and respectful to those who work around you. Keep noise, smells, and any other distractions to a minimum.
• Shaking hands.  A decent handshake can give someone a good first impression.
• Business gifts. Make sure your gift is appropriate to the setting and occasion. 
• Acknowledge others.  Be the first to congratulate someone where it is due. Never take credit for someone else's work.

1. Strategic Design: design principles and practices to guide strategy development and implementation towards innovative outcomes. 
2. Business Model Design: designing or redesigning of an organization’s or division’s business model to create value and prosper.
3. Employee Experience Design (EXD): design methods to designing programmes and experiences that employees desire. 
4. Service Design: design principles and methods to service planning, development and implementation.
5. Customer Experience Design (CXD): marketing principles and design methods to designing product/service experiences

Graphic design is significant as it can help you narrate a business story in a fanciful manner. Every business or corporate concern has a humble beginning. Sharing the struggles and hurdles your business has gone through the years with potential clients or customers is an impressive digital marketing strategy.

Stories that are delivered through graphics are said to be more effective in communication as the audience can imagine the hardship and remembers it for a long. 

Most, if not all, of us tend to get distracted in our day-to-day lives and stray further and further from completing our most important tasks, those that will help us achieve success. However, if we learn to set clear priorities and work on the tasks that bring us the most value, as well as cultivate the discipline to complete these tasks quickly and well, we will be on the path to success.

Furthermore, these abilities will help us consolidate ourselves as leaders instead of followers, which is an invaluable trait. Leaders are truly the ones who achieve their goals.

All narratives are about a very small number of basic plots, namely: Quest, voyage and return, rebirth, comedy, tragedy, overcoming the monster, rags to riches. And they apply to more than just fiction writers.

Consider which plot currently underpins your business and rewrite the future. Many leaders unconsciously follow a "tragedy" plot in times of crisis, but reframing your struggles as "voyage and return," you may experience a strategic shift that an exercise in lateral thinking helps you to achieve.

But reimagination is not so simple if you already have a highly successful business model. We become prisoners of the mental models that underpin our past success. In fact, Martin Reeves found in dealing with businesses that you can’t really stretch your strategy unless you stretch your mind.

Now play is of course a great way of stretching your mind. Reeves is not suggesting literally that executives huddle around a conference table with a big pile of Lego bricks, for example; instead he’s created a series of imagination games to help executives to stretch their thinking.

• Key metrics & goals: Your business goals determine your marketing goals, which determine your SEO goals.
• Competitors: Direct & informational competitors (provide information to your ideal audience).
• Resources: Time, budget, & personnel.
• Brand identity + recognition: Determines the types of content that you go after.
• Area of expertise + Strengths: Lean on your expertise & strengths. Collaborate with others to help you with your weakness and provide information to your audience.
• Time in business: A new website should be different from an older one.

The idea of innovation is taking off just as fast as the businesses that embrace it.

But, not all companies are prepared to push innovation within their organizations. Changing workplace systems and procedures requires resilience and flexibility, and it’s an unfortunate reality that many people are afraid of or continue to resist change.

• The primary component of the business model is the value proposition. A value proposition is a description of the goods or services a company offers and why they are desirable to customers or clients.
• A new enterprise's business model also covers projected startup costs, financing sources, the target customer base, marketing strategy, a review of the competition, and projections of income and expenses.
• When evaluating a company as a possible investment, the investor should find out exactly how it makes money by looking through the company's business model.

A business model refers to a company's plan for making a profit.

• It identifies the product or service
• The target market
• Anticipated expenses

A business model helps developing companies to attract investment, recruit talent, and motivate management and staff. Established businesses should regularly update their business plans to help anticipate trends and challenges ahead.

• You probably show up late for meetings so that you don't have to engage in small talk. Instead, try to arrive early for meetings so that you can meet people as they arrive.
• Remember that others may also feel uncomfortable about speaking up. They are also nervous about voicing their opinion. They will be relieved if you speak up first.
• Examine the thoughts you have while in a meeting. Ask if the thoughts are helpful and realistic.

We must remember that most people do not become rich and famous. Most leaps of faiths are miscalculated. This does not mean that we should stop trying, instead we should remain to have a realistic understanding of reality.

Most entrepreneurs don't actually know what they're doing. There isn't a lot of them who have a detailed or a perfected plan to follow. Still, we try to "copy" their ways so that we can probably achieve what they have achieved.

Human life is full of struggles, there are no two opinions in this, it is meant to say that the responsibility of man to fulfill different obligations at different stages of his age falls on his shoulders. Money can be only earned by doing some business or job. In such a situation, when the person’s studies are complete, then he considers what it would be good for him to do in job or business. Or there are some people who ask this question a bit by turning around, what is the difference between a job and a business. In both these questions, a man wants to know what can be better of these two,

Begin by inviting your friends and family and urge them to bring their acquaintances on board.

This can manifest into a social media – a Facebook page or group that you may ask them to be a part of, a Youtube channel that they can subscribe to.

Utilize your platform to attract customers by offering your services at a discount.

This is where the previous work that you did for free comes into play since you can present it as a sample or part of your portfolio.

Business Carrots: It's a term that I have been using all these years to define different situations in my meetings where clients offer me something to get lower commercials. It's exactly like how you use a carrot to trap a rabbit in the cage. Stay aware of these carrots

The reason you are struggling is that you are trying to run a 21st-century business in a world that is rapidly changing. I don’t mean your product or service needs to change. Those can be fine just as they are. The problem is almost always with your internal processes, systems, and the way you hire, manage, measure performance, etc.

The old rules of thumb are out of date. Previous business plans will have to be redrawn, automatic assumptions will have to be questioned, accepted strategies will have to be revised.

B2B marketing occurs when one business markets its products or services to another business or organization.

 You have to identify the Decision-Makers and figure out how to gain Buy-In from C-Level leadership.

The worst business decision ever was not to start Tesla with just JB Straubel, the visionary co-founder.

Before Elon invested, Tesla was just a shell company with no employees and no intellectual property. Martin Everhard created a false narrative that he created the company.

Paid media advertising — the bread-and-butter of big brands — can be cost-prohibitive for small businesses. Ad budgets can quickly become bloated without contributing to growth.

New small business owners often assume that paid advertising is crucial to getting customers. A few Google or Facebook ads can easily rack up thousands in ad spend per month. Unfortunately, advertising has a poor ROI compared to other forms of marketing, especially for new businesses.

Starting a successful business requires careful planning, dedication, and hard work. Here are some steps you can take to increase your chances of success

Efficient teams trust each other. Bill Campbell always advocates to build the trust muscle first. It's the basis for psychological safety:

• Trust means you keep your word. If you say you will do something... Do it.
• Trust means loyalty. To your company, your team and your family.
• Trust means integrity. Say the truth and expect nothing else in return.
• Truth means discretion. Keep secrets.

Good managers connect with people on a personal level in 1-1s or staff meetings:

• Share trip reports
• Discuss family
• Etc...

"Getring people to share stories, to be personal with each other, is a tactic to ensure better decision-making and camaraderie."

• Ensure you have a stable income stream before you take attention away from it.
• Let your audience, customers, and fans tell you what they want. If you can understand when your market wants something from you and if they are willing to pay for it, creating other revenue streams will naturally develop.
• Testing ideas is essential.
• Not all projects should be monetized. Some will pay you back in other ways like creatively energizing you or letting you experiment and fail, that may be valuable.

Possible approaches to leading a startup faced with rapid growth:

• Managing content: The most direct approach to getting things done is to do them yourself or to directly supervise those who do. 
• Managing behaviors: you specify how people should behave; you identify the behaviors that lead to success and codify them as rules that employees are told to follow.
• Managing results:  providing the resources, the training, and the motivation that people need to produce results.
• Managing context:  you approach results more broadly by shaping the culture, values, and structure of the organization.

B2C marketing refers to a marketing strategy that’s designed for a company that markets its products or services directly to consumers.

They can operate online, in brick-and-mortar stores, or both.

The way to becoming a great leader is through your core values, business ethics and leadership qualities which precede you in both your business and personal life.

Your business ethics are manifested in your willingness to adhere and keep to your core values. Doing so will make your character stronger and in consequence, every other part of your life will improve as well.

An ideal business model has network effects, low marginal costs, and scale economies.

Scale economies: the more you produce, the cheaper it gets. This builds up an automatic barrier to entry against competition and getting commoditized.

Technology products especially, and media products, have this great quality where they have zero marginal cost of reproduction.

Joe Rogan is working no harder on his current podcast than he was on Podcast number 1, but on Podcast number 1,100 he’s making a million dollars whereas for the first one he probably lost money.

This is a framework for understanding meaningful differences in people’s working styles. It identifies four primary types:

• Pioneers, who value possibilities and spark energy and imagination
• Guardians, who value stability and bring order and rigor
• Drivers, who value challenge and generate momentum
• Integrators, who value connection and draw teams together

• Your business model is the map of how you create value and deliver it to customers. In this phase, we will conduct financial analysis to verify business viability, launch your product and go-to-market strategy, and then develop a dashboard to monitor your progress forward.
• Predict Business Model with Customer Data: Ask questions like "how would you want to buy something like this?" direct, distributor, partner. What would they need to feel comfortable making the purchase? What would a potential deal look like?
• Validate Financial Model: Evaluate margins, fixed costs and variable costs.

Writing is NOT the antithesis of agile. 

Agility comes from planning. Without plans, activities are just brownian motion. And you can’t have plans, especially shared plans, without writing.

• I wrote overviews of what I was selling, why I thought the business made sense, an overview of my competition, why my product and/or service would be important to my customers and why they should buy or use it.
• Once I could put the idea on paper, I gave the company a name.
• I tried to find people to shoot holes in the name.
• It’s as if the missing link for success in a business is cash to get started. It’s not.