Tag Archives: planning

Expose yourself – Day 28/139

I’ve spent the most of today finalizing our business plan for the Venture Cup deadline tomorrow at noon. Better yet, my team has been supporting me in this undertaking.

My first exposure today was at Zipipop where I was apparently the first one to use their Zipi Doctor service. Thanks guys for sharing your ideas. It was great to reflect my thoughts with you.

While writing the plan I got a rare opportunity to sit next to a room full of high-ranking Finnish business and IT people discussing about their own business ideas and venture funding scenarios.

The opportunity to pitch my idea to them was so appealing that I did just that. I even remembered to link them here to my blog. So thank you guys for your valuable time.

If any of you read this entry, I challenge you to rate my pitch on a scale of 1 to 10.

For an entrepreneur it is important to constantly utilize the possibilities to expose themselves to criticism. The more knowledge the people listening to you have, the better comments you usually get. And if you don’t get any criticism that means the audience doesn’t understand what you’re saying.

Expose yourself to the worst possible criticism. That gives you the best possible starting point for improving yourself for the next pitch.

Advertisement

From good to brilliant – Day 14/139

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.

Hands on to business planning – Day 5/139

This weekend I’m going to complete one business plan. I’ll be investing a million of my money and take another 500,000 in bank loans. This money is then invested in a factory and the necessary production equipment to produce a basic product almost everyone wants to buy!

Unfortunately this business plan is for a game and my investment will in a virtual currency called the DOM. The upside is that this game is one of the most advanced business simulations available, designed by the famous double Ph.D. Juuso Töyli. I’m really looking forward to seeing how my team of four people makes it in a highly competitive environment of the game. I’ll be spending Thursday and Friday next week playing this and hope to get something out of it even to report to this blog.

What comes to business planning, I’ll throw the following challenge to all my readers:

I promise to help one person each day to sketch a business plan of their own. All you need to do is to contact me and I’ll help in any way I possibly can. Including writing the plan itself. Completely free of charge and without any obligations. Heck, I’ll even write a confidentiality agreement if your idea is too good to share with a stranger!

What do you think might happen if you took you chance and started living your dream now?