Tag Archives: ideas

A few undeniable facts – Day 47/139

Posted on March 28, 2010 | Leave a comment

Let me start giving you a quote presented by Mårten Mickos on his Twitter account.

In business, too much naiveté makes you fail – but complete lack of it prevents you from winning big.

Now, think of the biggest possible goals and place them on the naivety axis. Here are some examples:

  • World peace
  • Racial equality
  • Ecological awareness.

The really big thoughts have undeniable advantages for the whole humanity. The only obstacle in reaching these goals is the humanity itself.

Setting aside the fact that any big idea needs to be naive enough to become popular, I’ve collected here some vague themes that we will be addressing with our project:

  1. Our idea will be an ethical way to helping the fellow-man
  2. Our idea will be an ecological choice against the consumer society
  3. Our idea will be a game that everyone is already playing but just not counting their score in it
  4. Our idea will motivate people to exercise more
  5. Our idea will offer people the chance to make some extra money completely legally and without any obligations.

Our idea is still pretty far from the top of the naivety axis. Still, even touching a single one of these goals could change the world for the better.

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8 secrets of success – Day 39/139

Posted on March 20, 2010 | Leave a comment

Speaker and author Richard St. John presented his eight secrets of success at the 2005 TED conference. This three-minute presentation is fascinating in its simplicity. I really recommend you to watch it.

Although I learned about Richard’s list only recently, these eight secrets have been the foundation of my project for the last 39 days.

  1. Passion. I’m thrilled about the things that we do. But what is even more important are the people who can share this passion.
  2. Work. Making a million in 139 days requires a great deal of work. I’m willing to push myself to the limit. But work doesn’t feel like work when you’re working with people and things that you really like.
  3. Good. I’m not good at everything. That is why I work with people who are good in what they do. Passionate hard work for anything makes you good at it. I going to be good at turning ideas into reality.
  4. Focus. The goal of this project has been clear from the start. The means to get there are a work-in-progress but we’re not far from founding a company that does one single thing, and does it well.
  5. Push. Working hard requires pushing yourself. Not everything is 100 % fun all the time. Writing one blog post per day needs some pushing.
  6. Serve. Serving other’s is the single most important factor of what I do. Firstly, I want to serve my team in giving them tasks that they love. Secondly, I want our team to be honestly willing to help others through what we’re going to accomplish.
  7. Ideas. I have a lot more ideas than is even required to make a million. One good idea is enough. But people keep sharing me their own ideas which is fantastic. We can change the world one good idea at a time.
  8. Persist. Richard put it well. Persist through CRAP. Criticism, Rejection, Assholes and Pressure. I get all of that and I’ve learned to like it.

The last thing that I would like to add to the list is Openness. Openly sharing your motives and intentions will help the team dynamics. At the point when we’re addressing our future customers, we will show how openness can be a critical success factor even in business life.

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All publicity is good publicity – Day 37/139

Posted on March 18, 2010 | Leave a comment

I attended today an event in Otaniemi called New Wave 2010. This event was about entrepreneurship, new ideas, pitches, keynote speakers and free catering.

One of the speakers was Riku & Tunna from Madventures. The high point of their speech for me was when Riku presented a story he had read from a blog. So my blog is officially read by at least one Finnish TV celebrity.

This is obviously a positive thing

What’s even better is that I’m currently getting a stable flow of readers. Over 300 people each day are interested in what I have to say. And my readers are doing most of the marketing effort.

When writing this post there was still $88,740 left in the marketing budget that I presented on Day 4. One guy already thought of working full time just linking my blog instead of getting a job.

Compared to having a random job just for money, I’m certain that linking my blog is more profitable. If someone really wants to do this full time, I recommend you keep your eyes constantly open for ideas of your own. You could build both your own net presence and link to my blog at the same time.

And after my project was over, you’d still have your own personality left. That is something no money can buy.

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From good to brilliant – Day 14/139

Posted on February 23, 2010 | 2 comments

There just isn’t an idea that would be good from the start

Almost all people come up with ideas with some business potential sometime in their life. Most never do anything about it.

I’m sure even a bad idea can be turned into a brilliant one if enough people are thinking it through. Thinking and discussing an idea is the development that any idea needs to become any good in the first place.

You mean, I should share my idea with as many people as possible?

Actually I think sharing an idea is the only way to develop it further but I still wouldn’t recommend sharing your good ideas with everybody. However, most people overestimate the power of their idea and are scared that someone might steal it, so they don’t share it with anyone. Start by sharing your idea with a few friends and see where it gets from there. But don’t give up on it on the first negative feedback you get.

What about your ideas and their development?

I’m looking for one to three people to join me and submit a business plan to VentureCup. If you’re a business planning guru, that’s great. It you’re a great presenter, even better but you don’t need to be either. If you think you can positively affect the success of our team in the competition, you’re probably the person we’re looking for!

The deadline for the submission is March 10, 2010 12 noon. So you should have some free time in your hands until the deadline to participate.

What’s in it for me?

That’s up to you. The first prize in the contest is 25,000 € and if we win you can be sure to get at least your fair share. If we don’t win anything then you’ve only lost a bit of your time but might have a whole new future ahead of you.

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A list of good ideas – Day 12/139

Posted on February 21, 2010 | 6 comments

People often make lists of things they have to remember. To-do lists and shopping lists are probably the most common examples. After I started my project I’ve  carried with me small pieces of paper I call the List of Good Ideas.

I don’t get any good ideas

Everyone gets good ideas. Most people just forget them because they refuse to write them down. Not all ideas are brilliant but if you have enough of them, they can’t all be bad either.

If I only got a dollar every time I had a good idea

Now you can. Take a piece of paper or a notebook and start carrying it around. Whenever you get a good idea write it to your list. Try to write down at least the best idea every day and you’ll end up with a list that is extremely valuable.

I promise to buy their list for $100 from anyone who manages to keep filling it for 100 days during my project. There are still 127 days left so you don’t even have to do it every day. To claim your $100 we’ll just arrange a meeting and go through your list. If you wish to keep the list yourself, I’d love to help you develop your ideas further.

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Status update – Day 8/139

Posted on February 17, 2010 | Leave a comment

I’ve been saving today’s post to send a status update to all of you following my project.

As I mentioned before I was pitching an idea at the Aalto ES today. It went about as good as I expected and definitely better than the rehearsal speech on Monday.

The judges apparently liked my pitch and my idea came third out of eight. That was probably the best possible place to be at, since I got concrete help on where the drawbacks of my idea are. I will have plenty of time later to tell you more about the idea and how I’m going to make it happen.

In the pitching competition the first place was awarded to a great social media experiment called Promises where you can make a promise that your friends can see so that  you have the social pressure of keeping it. I love the idea. Get the site running guys and I can come and promise to do the million before thirty.

The second place went to an idea of starting a Colombian coffee franchise in Finland. All they need is two million to start with but really I hope they pull it through.

So what now?

Now I will discuss with the Tuli people on Monday how they see how they see the market potential in what I’m doing. After that we’ll just start doing it together with the team I will be building in the next few days. It was great to see so many people who had good ideas and wanted to help me in any way they can. Thank you all, I really appreciate your expertise and love to see your ideas developed further.

What comes to this project financially, obviously so far it is on the negative side. After registering a couple of domain names, I’m now at -$21.90.

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