shefska.com

Category: Entrepreneurship

  • Building a $160k ARR Business

    The world is changing. Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever started out a piece of writing with something that ambiguous and open-ended.

    Everyday new technological advances come along. There are autonomous cars, AI that tickets you for jaywalking, and myriad other interesting (and scary) enhancements to our way of life.

    There is an undeniable shift occurring on planet earth. Human beings (and computers) have more information available to them at all times than ever before. This information overload has led to some wacky and ingenious developments. However, one thing (at least in my four years of experience) has not changed with the times.

    Since 2014, I have lived, breathed, and worked in the nonprofit sector. I haven’t been employed by a nonprofit, no, instead I have worked for a tech company building solutions for nonprofits. Over the past four years I have written nearly 100 blog posts, been interviewed on close to a dozen podcasts, and built one new product. It’s been a fun, interesting, and rewarding ride!

    Information accessibility is at an all-time high, and it’s certainly impacting our society, but what I have seen from my professional career is that in the nonprofit sector we haven’t been able to keep up with our peers. As individuals, companies, and even governments evolve to exploit the benefits of information overload, nonprofits simply haven’t.

    It was this realization, paired with some great foresight by my mentor, that our company, MarketSmart decided to build Fundraising Report Card. Some nonprofits would be able to catch the information wave, and others would not. With Fundraising Report Card we thought we could help as many organizations as possible get on board.

    Information overload in the nonprofit sector

    Not all nonprofits are laggards. Some organizations are incredibly forward thinking and robust. I always like to think about nonprofits such as the Internet Archive, or the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

    These organizations (whose leadership I have gotten to know and engage with), are forward thinking. They caught the information wave and have been proactive in leveraging data. That’s not to say either organization is perfect — they’re both far from it, but they are at least leveraging data (information) to make strategic decisions.

    traditional spray and pray fundraising

    During this time of change there will be winners and losers. Just like their for profit peers, some nonprofits will figure out how to leverage data to grow their organization sustainably, while others will continue to go with “gut feel.” Those that rely on guesses will not sustain themselves, those that leverage information will.

    Well known and well respected organizations that don’t hop on the data-driven train will be left behind. This isn’t my opinion, it’s simply the truth. Compare Charity Water and March for Dimes. One is leveraging data at every step of the donor journey, the other still sprays and prays their constituency like it’s 1980.

    What is Fundraising Report Card?

    Every product (at least those that grow and are profitable) needs to solve a problem. If you build something and it doesn’t help someone (or some organization) relieve some sort of pain, you aren’t going to have many customers.

    With Fundraising Report Card, we set out to build something that made the barrier to entry lower for nonprofit organizations to leverage their data. You see, the issue nonprofits face is not in collecting information — they truly have plenty. Instead, the issue they face is making sense of all that information and turning it into action.

    Business intelligence (BI) is an abstract and nebulous phrase within the walls of a nonprofit. To some BI means you need Tableau, to others, BI might signal the need to hire an outside consultant to produce a 50 page report. BI, for better or worse, tends to fall upon deaf (and unaware) ears.

    This isn’t the fault of nonprofit staff however. Third party vendors in the nonprofit space (like the company I work for), are notoriously bad. The products they make are clunky, their systems are outdated and antiquated, they frequently tie up organizations in multi-year contracts that they cannot get out of, etc, etc.

    For us, this created a unique opportunity to produce Fundraising Report Card.

    Fundraising Report Card is essentially a simple version of Tableau that is geared towards fundraising data. Instead of building something overwhelming and clunky, we built something dead simple and easy to use. Users upload their anonymous donation data to the web application and then receive a series of reports, interactive dashboards, and insights.

    You can read a full overview of the platform here.

    For many organizations, what we created could help them reach the promised land (leveraging data) in a way that was respectful of their knowledge of data analysis, skill-level with software, and limited time and finances they could invest.

    We had built something that solved a problem and people were buying it.

    How we grew Fundraising Report Card

    Growing the business didn’t happen overnight. Attaining $160k in ARR over two years is far from the most impressive business feat. Our growth isn’t staggering, and our customer retention could (and should) be better. How then did we grow to where we are today?

    I did one thing, and I did it well. I became an expert in the field.

    It may seem foolish to suggest this, but over the past 24 months I transitioned my career from designer, to developer, to nonprofit data guru. I’m not kidding either. My blog posts have been read over 100,000 times online, an article of mine was published in an industry journal, and I’ve even been paid to speak (what 21 year old knows what an honorarium is?).

    This marketing approach (becoming an expert) wasn’t intended to boost my ego (although I’m sure it did), instead it was utilized to position Fundraising Report Card as authoritarian in a space that lacked any real leadership.

    It worked.

    If you look at our Google Analytics data you can see that thousands of individuals arrive at Fundraising Report Card via organic search traffic each month.

    google analytics screenshot

    This is great, because those individuals are searching for information, things like, “What is donor lifetime value?” and they end up reading one of my articles. After reading the article they may subscribe to the blog, sign up for the free version of the software, or leave the site. Regardless of their next action, they’ve begun to build some familiarity with Fundraising Report Card, and that’s a big win. Plus, visitors from organic search traffic are exhibiting a need — they’re obviously looking for information to help them solve some sort of problem.

    Investing time, energy, and effort into original content has proven incredibly valuable for us to grow the business. But, marketing (lead generation) is only one half of the battle, the next is sales (closing deals). On our path to $160k ARR we did a few things well in this realm as well.

    Closing deals

    When you build something brand new you have a lot to learn. What are people willing to pay, how do they want to pay, will they even pay? The questions go on and on.

    One of the things we did best, especially when we “launched” Fundraising Report Card, was that we got on the phone with our sales prospects. Fundraising Report Card has a freemium business model, which means there is a free version of the software with limited features and a paid version that provides more value.

    Our first customer came from me getting on the phone with the (then free) user and discussing his specific needs and how we could help address them. This pattern of behavior has continued on to today. Just this past week I spent time on the phone with a development director of a nonprofit helping her understand what she has access to within Fundraising Report Card.

    This high touch and involved sales process was heaven sent at first, but today it is one of the key contributors holding Fundraising Report Card back from more explosive growth.

    There is a certain price threshold that indicates whether a product can be sold through a high touch sales model, and our price points (tiers ranging from $200 to $5,000 annually) are not high enough. When you come to this realization the first thought that goes through your head is, “How can we mitigate sales prospects from needing our assistance in order to purchase?” and myriad ideas come to mind. The issue with this is the realization that you have limited resources.

    Our team on Fundraising Report Card was stretched thin. I couldn’t get engineering time to help me build a more friendly on boarding workflow. Adding seemingly small features that would assist users in selling themselves in the software was unattainable, thus high touch sales has persevered.

    Unfortunately this hurts profitability (for two and half years my time has been spent selling when it could have been happening without me), but on the plus side it has allowed me to learn the exact roadblocks we face in truly automating the sales process.

    For example, a lot of my conversations with sales prospects focus on what data to analyze. You may not know it (honestly, you shouldn’t know it), but nonprofits have different ways of “coding” their data in their database. From my high touch sales engagements I’ve learned the idiosyncrasies of hard and soft credits, pledges and pledge payments, and more. All of these (seemingly) minute details impact the value that Fundraising Report Card is able to provide. Since we are aware of them now, a salesperson can be prepared for these types of questions and provide workaround solutions, increasing the likelihood of a sales occurring.

    High touch sales has its pros and its cons.

    Retaining users year over year

    Acquiring customers isn’t that important. What’s truly on the top of my list is retaining the existing base of paid users. Any recurring payment product lives and dies by retention rate and it’s no different with Fundraising Report Card.

    Since the product has been on the market for over two years, we have learned a lot about retaining nonprofit clients. First there were two big realizations:

    1. The staff member that bought the subscription might not be there a year later;
    2. The credit card on file most likely will need to be changed.

    There is notoriously high turnover amongst nonprofit professionals, and that has been a retention challenge for Fundraising Report Card. Imagine Jane purchases Fundraising Report Card, trains herself, and then moves to a different position 8 months later. A year passes and the organization gets an invoice for a product that no one else has ever heard of. What do you do? You have to start the sales cycles all over again. This happens too frequently.

    Another common challenge we face is out of date payment information. You’d be amazed how many company credit cards go out of date each year… at times it feels like Fundraising Report Card has gotten all of them. Even when credit cards are still in service we run into “do not honor” rejection codes from banks. Too frequently we have to engage with our point of contact at the organization to ask them to talk with their billing department to approve the charge.

    All fun stuff.

    Where is the future and how big can it get?

    There’s a lot of potential with Fundraising Report Card. Over the past two and half years more and more nonprofits have jumped on the data-driven train, but there are still plenty that have yet to come on board. In particular, smaller nonprofits (think those that raise less than $1M a year) could benefit from Fundraising Report Card.

    One of the biggest problems Fundraising Report Card solves is one that we did not recognize when we initially built the software, that is for reporting key metrics to the board. Unfortunately, not much of our marketing or product are geared towards board reporting.

    When we initially built the software we focused on business intelligence, for example you can click into segments of the reports, manipulate them, and then export data. However, what users really want is a better way to print key metrics in a presentation-ready fashion. We didn’t know that at the time, and since then we haven’t invested the engineering time to make it happen. Nonetheless, hundreds of nonprofit professionals use Fundraising Report card to do just that.

    There is an awesome opportunity to take what we’ve learned over the past 24+ months and re-imagine Fundraising Report Card. With a focus on board reporting, providing more actionable insights, and removing some of the most unused features, we could (and should) be looking at a $1M ARR business.

    As I have taken over a new role at MarketSmart, I no longer solely focus on Fundraising Report Card. Plus, with our limited engineering resources we are not in a position to modify things immediately, however, if I still was in charge, and if I did have engineering resources to make changes, here is what I would do:

    1. Reposition Fundraising Report Card as a database agnostic add-on;
      • For example, a competitor in the space offers their own solution that is positioned as an add-on for specific CRMs. Fundraising Report Card should do the same. Imagine Fundraising Report Card for Raiser’s Edge. Fundraising Report Card for SalesForce. Etc. This would help with recognition amongst existing CRM users and it would also position Fundraising Report Card as complementary, and not competing against existing platforms (ie, we make your existing reporting even better, give us a try).
    2. Focus high-touch sales efforts on a chapter-based organization;
      • Instead of signing up $200 here and $500 there, I’d engage with leadership at chapter based organizations (think Boys and Girls clubs, or YMCAs) and try to provide a comprehensive solution to their network. This could (and should) be a five or six figure annual agreement.
    3. Make it easier to get to the “aha” moment;
      • Right now, for more than 50% of all paid users, they required some human touch to reach their “aha” moment. That’s not sustainable, unless you drastically raise prices. For many users the “aha” moment is realizing that they have so much interesting and compelling data in their database that they previously weren’t aware of, but the issue is, they currently require some handholding to make that connection. Well designed software should mitigate that need, but someone needs to scope that out.
    4. Re-up marketing with cornerstone content;
      • It’s been a year since I published an e-book on Data-Driven Fundraising. That e-book was one of our best marketing efforts, and Fundraising Report Card could greatly benefit from providing existing users with more content of that nature. This would help with retention and acquisition because both existing users and new users could refer to it to help make sense of all the information they have access to through the software.

    What do you think?

    So that’s that. In two and half years Fundraising Report Card has grossed over $200k in revenue, assisted nearly four thousand nonprofits, and has allowed me to become an industry expert with no real qualifications. I told you it’s been a fun ride!

    If you’ve made it this far, what do you think of the little business we’ve built? I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

  • One Year Later — Launching the Fundraising Report Card!

    Back in October of 2015 I wrote an article titled Notes From Creating a New Product. In that post I shared my excitement about beginning to work with Greg Warner, the CEO of MarketSmart on a new software. Today I’m even more excited to share an update on our progress.

    If you’ve chatted with me in person, I’ve probably tried to explain to you what the Fundraising Report Card is. But, to be entirely honest, I most likely left you feeling confused — I struggle to describe what I’ve been working on for all these months. By writing it out here I hope that I’ll be a little more effective in sharing what exactly I’ve been up to.

    What is it

    The Fundraising Report Card is a business intelligence and data analysis tool. The Fundraising Report Card empowers nonprofits to make data-driven decisions.

    Data-driven decision making is such a buzz phrase, so let’s breakdown what it really means. And, more importantly, what it implies in the context of fundraising at nonprofit organizations.

    First though, I need to share a brief overview of how donations work.

    When you donate $20 to Save the Children (or any nonprofit organization) 35% (sometimes more, sometimes less) of that money goes towards overhead expenses. Overhead expenses include paying for consultants, investing in infrastructure, and sending letters to you asking for more money. (Yes, it’s a tough reality, but your donations are part of what gets invested in the “fundraising budget”). In a perfect world all $20 of your donation would go straight to the children that need to be saved — but in reality there are operating costs that need to be paid.

    Okay, with that in mind let me frame how important data-driven decision making really is.

    Right now, in this very moment your favorite nonprofit is spending thousands and thousands of dollars on direct mail appeals to try and raise more funds from you. There is nothing wrong with that (although some people might argue otherwise), they need to raise money and they need to ask you (and others) to help. Fine.

    Behind the scenes most nonprofits are relying on a consultant (or a consulting firm) to help them decide who to mail to and what to mail to them — should this letter with a picture of a starving kid go to this list of donors or that list? This makes sense, right?

    Like any good business the nonprofit wants a sound strategy before taking any action. Spending an extra $5,000 or $10,000 on a consultant to try and make sure you get the highest return on investment (ROI) makes sense.

    This is the current system — hire a consultant, send out a bunch of mail, wait for results. You experience it, I experience it, it’s kind of shitty from the donor perspective to be honest (you end up with a lot of letters in the recycle can). Of course there are different techniques for different segments of donors (major donors don’t get mailed letters, they get a fundraising officer at their doorstep), but the process is generally the same.

    It should be apparent that there are a few obvious issues with the current fundraising paradigm.

    The Fundraising Report Card disrupts this pattern.

    A user of the Fundraising Report Card (usually a fundraiser or executive at the nonprofit, but also consultants) uploads anonymous donor data to the Report Card. With this data the Report Card calculates fundraising key performance metrics. Also known as, “really important statistics we should have been monitoring and analyzing for the past few years”.

    Here’s an example, taken straight from the for-profit sector — customer retention broken down by engagement channel. Think about it for a moment, what do you think the odds are that Netflix keeps track of how many users they retain each month? High, right? They have shareholders to report to every quarter, and you better believe those shareholders want to know how many users Netflix has been retaining. (More on this here).

    Internally, Netflix may break down that metric even further. They might segment the data by plan type and demographic information. What is our retention rate among users paying $20 or more a month on the east coast?

    Answers to questions like these help inform strategy and are fundamental in setting realistic goals.

    Yet, when it comes to the nonprofit sector a void exists. Sure, data abounds, but how can a fundraiser, executive director, or director of development really be asked “what channel provides your best ROI?”, most don’t have the tools to answer that question. And if they have the tools, they are not easy to use. They are inconvenient and clumsy… not to mention expensive. This is the void that the Fundraising Report Card fills.

    By providing fundraisers, executive directors, consultants, and and even board members with access to easy to comprehend key metrics and interactive reports, we’ve created a platform that allows for data to be a vital part of decision making.

    For example, we generate a retention analysis report, just like the one Netflix would use internally. And, one of the great things we do right off the bat is segment that data by giving level. Users can take it one step further and upload historical data based around specific appeals, and before they know it, they are taking a peek under the hood of their fundraising machine.

    How is our donor retention among mid-level donors who have received our end of year appeal letter? With the Fundraising Report Card the nonprofit can answer that question, and depending on the answer they can adjust their strategy. Ultimately the nonprofit cuts costs and invests in fundraising efforts that prove to have the highest ROI. Cool, right?

    You can learn more about the Fundraising Report Card here, and you can read a short case study from one of our early users here.

    What I’ve been doing

    Since August of 2015 I’ve been working with Greg to develop our strategy for the Fundraising Report Card. Beginning in January of this year, I was given the resources (money, time, people) and the responsibility (hit deadlines, set product demonstrations, build my network) to take this idea and make it into a reality.

    On April 4th 2016 we launched the beta version of the Fundraising Report Card. Leading up to that event I spent most of my time focused on product development. I consider this my “product manager” phase. A lot of my time was spent on:

    • developing a product road map
    • determining which features would be included in which release
    • managing expectations of key stakeholders
    • learning about software as a service business models
    • reaching out to industry leaders who were interested in providing feedback and testing
    • designing the logo and front-end of the application
    • and writing a lot of Angular and JavaScript code (user interface stuff)

    The objective early on was to get a minimal, functional, viable product in the hands of our potential users. We started working towards our April 4th release date at the end of February. We hit our deadline and we got plenty of engaged users to test it out. We found a lot of bugs, got a lot of great suggestions and learned a ton about the market we were trying to position ourselves in.

    After the initial product was out in the wild I pivoted my focus towards getting people to use it. And, most importantly, getting those people to talk to me. This was, and still is part of the “collect feedback” phase. I’ve spent a lot of time…

    • reaching out to people on LinkedIn
    • setting up screen-share demonstrations
    • holding phone calls with existing users
    • hosting webinars with industry groups
    • configuring automated emails to nurture and engage users
    • and playing the role of “support agent” on our live-chat widget

    Today my role has evolved even more. Elements from the product management, and collecting feedback stages are still part of my day-to-day, but now I have started the transition into “sales”.

    This stage has involved a lot of…

    • researching pricing psychology
    • developing relationships with potential “partners” (consultants, consulting firms, data CRM companies)
    • organizing sales materials
    • building the foundation of a sales funnel (deal stages, workflows, etc.)
    • writing marketing and sales copy
    • talking with more and more users
    • and getting people (nonprofits) to give me their money

    Sounds kind of fun, right?

    Moving forward

    Taking the Fundraising Report Card from idea to fruition has been an educational, challenging, and unbelievably fun process. Yet, the most exciting and compelling moment so far has been receiving supportive feedback from users.

    For example, I recently I completed our first case study. The client, the Director of Philanthropy at a multinational relief organization with over $60 million in annual budget, used our beta tool and had a great, positive experience.

    Creating that case study meant talking with the client and learning how they used our platform. Hearing their Director’s comments and learning how powerful our software was for them made me feel vindicated.

    Receiving positive feedback is some sort of validation for all the work our team has put into this project. For me personally it has helped frame how important what we are working on really is.

    Learn more

    If you’re interested in learning more about the Fundraising Report Card please take a look at our website (press play on the video and you’ll even get to hear my voice!).

    If you have any questions for me, like, “Zach, how the hell did you end up making some data analysis tool for nonprofits?” please don’t hesitate to reach out.

    And finally, if you want to learn more about the nonprofit sector and how you can make an impact check out some of these resources…

  • Considerations for “Freemium”

    Freemium – the combination of “free” and “premium” – has become a mainstay business model for many technology companies.

    The theory is simple. Users get access to basic features at no cost, while they also have the option to pay a subscription fee for more advanced capabilities. There are examples of prominent freemium companies across every sector. If you have listened to music on Spotify, networked on LinkedIn, or sent an email through MailChimp, you have experienced it firsthand. Slack, HubSpot, and Box come to mind in the B2B world as well.

    For businesses the primary benefit of freemium is obvious, it’s an organic marketing tool. For a small company, freemium can seem like an attractive way to get market share fast. In theory, free users will use and share your product or service. Eventually, some of those free users will upgrade into revenue generating premium users.  Yet, as with most theories, freemium is not quite that simple. Before an entrepreneur makes the decision to go freemium they should ask themselves a few questions.

    What market type are you entering?

    Taking a page out of Steve Blank’s book, The Four Steps to the Epiphany, the first consideration you need to look at is market type.

    Let’s assume you are entering the existing market of mobile music streaming. Since you are entering an existing market your goal in year 1 is to gain as much market share as possible. Freemium makes sense. Your free software should market itself and bring users to you. This does not mean you should overlook mature competitors who are offering similar products or services. Organic growth from free users may be stunted if your free feature set is not “good enough” to draw users from alternative free services. (Think about Peter Thiel’s “be a magnitude better” theory).

    If you are not entering or re-segmenting a market you must be creating a new one. Your goal in year 1 is to educate your target market. Offering a free version of your product or service can be a cost effective way to do this. You may also mitigate expenses on traditional marketing and sales activities. Organic growth may be hard to come by because there is no community or industry to evangelize around your company yet. But, the benefits of empowering new users to learn on their own can provide meaningful long term benefits.

    Freemium can work in any market type. Identify which you are entering to help clarify what potential pitfalls lay ahead.

    What is free?

    Imagine you are product manager of a new software with 15 distinct features. You decide 5 of the features are basic enough that any user can have access to them while the other 10 are only for those who pay. How do you know that you’ve made the right choice? What do you do if it turns out you were wrong?

    Remember, the primary benefit of freemium is in attracting new users. That makes the “what is free” decision overwhelmingly important. A 2011 research paper written by Kim Joar Bekkelund, titled Succeeding with Freemium analyzes the thoughts of many academics focusing on this problem.

    There are three main ways to differentiate your free and premium product.

    1. You can offer less functionality in the free version.
    2. You can offer less capacity in the free version.
    3. You can only offer the free version to some users. For example you let nonprofits use your service for free, but charge for-profit organizations.

    These concepts are relatively straight-forward, the difficulty comes in executing one, or all effectively. One strategy to optimize your free vs. premium differentiation is to use beta tests as a crutch. Overtime you will be tweaking your free vs. paid differentiators based off of user feedback and the data you collect. Running many rounds of beta tests can be a cost effective way to learn what your users respond to.

    Can you afford free users?

    The freemium model is only profitable when the variable costs of free users are less than the profits generated by premium users. In the case of software products or services this concept is easy to grasp.

    All expenses  that are not “one-time” are part of your variable costs. Money spent on servers, technology infrastructure and people must be less than the operating profit you realize from premium subscribers. If it costs you $1 a month for every free user you need to be realizing at least that much in revenue from every paid user.

    By modelling future costs and watching expenses you can somewhat reliably predict if the freemium model is plausible for you.

    More questions

    This blog post touches on a few important considerations for freemium businesses. Below are more questions that you should pose yourself before deciding to go into the free/premium landscape.

    • Do users need the premium offer?
    • Are free users providing referrals?
    • Are you hitting your target conversion rate?
    • Do you have a large addressable market?

    Related readings

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  • One Year after Resigning from College

    One year ago I left the University of Pittsburgh.

    In early December of 2014 my mom was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. On December 22nd she shared the devastating news with me.

    Two week later I went back to Pitt for the start of the second semester on January 5th.

    Four days after that I had packed up my bedroom and was on a flight back home. There was no decision to be made, I knew that I wanted to be with my family.

    In the time since I have had many, “when are you going back to college” discussions. I have not returned to school, and my current plan does not directly involve it.

    Without school in the equation I have managed to do a lot in the past twelve months. I’m very proud of how I have grown, matured, and adapted to my new situation.

    In case you were curious, here is what I have been up to during the past year.

    Family

    • I have helped my mom continue to live a “normal” life.
      • This was my number one priority when I made the decision to move back home. I wanted to do everything I could to help her lead an active, engaging and interesting life.
    • As a result I have also taken some of the burden off of my dad to aid in that cause.

    Health

    • Although I was consistent about going to the gym while at Pitt, I have become more committed.
      • I have exercised and written down every workout over the past year.
    • In an effort to save time I have prepared my lunch for the work week every Sunday.
      • This has also helped me increase my savings and productivity (more about that here).
    • I have finally achieved a 1000lb total in the three main lifts of power-lifting (bench, squat, dead lift).

    Skills

    • I have greatly improved my knowledge and ability with Adobe Illustrator.
      • I have also learned how to use Adobe Photoshop and InDesign.
    • I learned and now understand the fundamental concepts of HTML and CSS.
    • I finally learned JavaScript and jQuery.
    • I learned my first JavaScript framework AngularJS (more on that here).
    • Recently I have started learning Angular2.
    • I’ve also become well-versed in constructing HTML emails… 🙁
    • I have been fortunate enough to learn how to create a “scope” document for business ideas (this is what I have learned from that so far).

    Career

    • In February I found a nice company to start my young career.
    • Within a few months I earned a nice raise.
    • I have been tasked with developing a new product, which has confirmed by desire to develop my own product someday (more on what I’m learning here).
    • I have managed the technical aspects of our company’s largest account for over 10 months.
    • I have also had the amazing opportunity to interview and on-boarded new employees (side-note, building a great team is hard).

    Entrepreneurship

    • I started cold-emailing business about a “hiring” solution that I envision creating in the near future.
      • I actually spent a lot of time reading, writing and organizing my thoughts before I ever reached out to any companies. This was the first time I executed on an idea with patience and diligence. In the past I would simply think of something and immediately pursue it.
    • I read and took notes on The Four Steps to the Epiphany.
      • This book has greatly shaped the way I envision starting up my own business.
    • I have been fortunate to have saved enough money to potentially fund my own business.
    • I took legal steps to kill GymBro, the first company I started while in college.

    Events

    • I traveled to Pittsburgh to watch the Arizona Cardinals lose to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
    • I bought a car.
      • I never thought I would dislike driving, but doing it for two hours a day wears you down quickly.
    • I traveled to Montreal for my sisters graduation from Mcgill University.
      • I found a way to lose my passport in Toronto (it is kinda fun being stuck in Canada).
    • My picture was featured on SportsIllustrated.com (thanks dad).

    Education

    • I attended my first professional conference at NationJS.
    • I failed out of the community college calculus II course I enrolled in.
      • Sorry mom 🙁 Calculus simply isn’t my thing.
    • I applied and was not admitted to the University of Maryland school of Business.
      • This was a bummer and surprise at first. Everything happens for a reason.

    Writing

    • I stayed relatively consistent and published 33 articles on this blog.
    • Somehow over 17,000 people visited this website over the past twelve months (thank you).
    • I became a “most viewed” writer on Quora, accumulating over 200,000 views on my answers.

    I have been busy, and I love it.

    I have written in the past about a three year “goal” plan.

    I strive to make those goals a reality.

  • The Power of Habits: Forming a Morning Routine

    Doing the same thing every day is boring. Getting in a “morning routine” exacerbates this boredom, but with good reason.

    What makes routines so powerful? Why are habits so important for success? Do you really need to do the same thing everyday to achieve more?

    Think about all the stress associated with deciding what to eat for breakfast. If you could avoid that, would you have a more productive day?

    Habits

    Routines are formed around habits. Habits are specific decisions that you make, which over time become automatic — you no longer decide to do something, it just happens.

    Habits are triggered by “cues”, which form “routines” that ultimately deliver a reward.

    With that in mind, think about how powerful a concise morning routine can be. One habit in your routine may be to eat the same oatmeal at 6:30am each morning. Your cue for that habit could be the fact that it is 6:30am. You automatically know it is time to eat because the clock says so, that is your cue.

    A slight side note… Cues are interesting and important. Charles Duhigg, author of “The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business” explains in-depth how to determine what cues trigger your habits. Compelling stuff.

    Routines are constructed of habits which are formed by cues. Ultimately, your routine produces some sort of reward.

    In our breakfast example your reward could be the fact that you are sticking to your diet, or rather that you do not have to stress about what you are going to eat every morning.

    My morning routine

    Beyond breakfast, my morning routine has multiple components. I follow this routine for one main reason… to not think. By doing the same thing every morning I avoid stress and accomplish many little tasks before my day really starts. As a result I save my mental capacity for later in the day, when surprises and stress are more frequent.

    This is a typical Monday – Friday morning for me.

    • Wake up at 4:15am
    • Eat a similar high protein breakfast at 4:20am
    • Bathroom break…
    • Leave for the gym at 4:50am
    • Arrive at the gym by 5:05am
    • Do my weight or aerobic training (I even have a routine for this)
    • Leave the gym at 6:15am
    • Listen to Mike and Mike until 6:30am
    • Shower and shave completed by 6:50am
    • Respond to emails and browse Hacker News until 7:10am
    • Eat a small snack, read the newspaper and leave for work by 7:30am

    In the first three hours of my day I have already completed a ton of small tasks. I eat, I exercise, I read, and I relax.

    By the time I leave for work at 7:30am I have accomplished more than I ever did in a whole day a few years ago. This is an amazing feeling.

    The scary component of this is that it just happens. All of these habits that make up this routine simply just “occur”. I don’t question it, I embrace it.

    What is the reward I get from this? Some people would argue that my routine is more punishment than privilege. I would strongly suggest it is the latter.

    Aside from the mental reward I get from being productive in the morning, I get the luxury of not having to stress, not having to worry, and not having to be rushed. I leave my house everyday for work with a positive mindset.

    It is on the days where my routine is interrupted that I find myself flustered, unable to concentrate and less productive.

    Forming a routine

    Routines can occur organically. You probably already have a few that just seem to “happen”. But, thanks to the research of people like Charles Duhigg there are a few techniques you can employ to help form your own strategic routines.

    Duhigg, and other professionals suggest planning specific, measurable, reward-able, and track-able (SMART) habits. A relatively recent Washington Post article does a good job outlining how this process works.

    In addition to planning SMART habits you can make your routine public information. Sharing with other people your plans reinforces the chance that you stick to them. With goal setting this is a common practice, the same can apply to routines.

    James Clear also did a fantastic job outlining the time it takes to form a new habit. I would suggest reading his article to further understand why it takes up to two months for habits to become automatic.

    There are plenty of other resources on line that dive deeper into habit-forming. A 2012 Chicago Tribune article helped me understand that my morning routine (albeit strange) is actually a “blessing”. And, a 2009 study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology (this study is referenced in the James Clear article) helped me better understand how long it takes for routines to become automatic.

    Routines are boring, but their benefits far outweigh the taste of eating the same thing for breakfast five days a week.

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  • Take This Idea: Gig Economy Retirement Benefits

    Uber has over 327,000 active drivers. That is a ton of people.

    If you consider those 327,000 people to be employees (which they are not) you would be looking at a company comparable in size to General Electric, the Home Depot, and UPS.

    Obviously Uber is humongous regardless of how their drivers are categorized. What makes Uber and other “gig economy” companies compelling is that their workforce’s are entirely comprised of independent contractors. Uber, Handy, Postmates and others have found hundreds of thousands of able and willing individuals to contract for them. That is amazing.

    The trade-offs that come from contract labor are under reported. Making money from Uber has its perks, but you can’t seriously consider making a career out of it, can you?

    Investors seem to think differently. Venture capital has flooded the “gig economy” scene, and startup companies have billion dollar bets riding on them. Uber is a fundamental social service, but lacks legitimacy at a valuation of $50 billion.

    What is holding Uber and other similar companies back?

    Financial security.

    Job seekers want three things from a potential career.

    1. A good salary and benefits
    2. A certain level of freedom and authority
    3. A guarantee that there job will be there every single day

    Uber does a fantastic job providing two of the three. Drivers have a great sense of authority – they choose the hours they work. Drivers also know that when they wake up on any given day they will be able to turn on their Uber app and start making money. In this sense, Uber has greatly empowered its contractors.

    Yet, Uber falls short on the most important career consideration – salary and benefits. Do you think Uber’s corporate employees get paid hourly? Do you think corporate employees have no retirement benefits? No, and no. So how can Uber provide this to contractors without being forced to call them “employees”?

    They can’t, and that creates a problem.

    Third Party Retirement Benefits

    Uber will never be able to pay their drivers salaries. If they did, they would no longer be independent contractors, and if drivers are no longer contractors then the whole gig economy comes to an abrupt end.

    Uber will also never be able to provide 401k retirement opportunities to their drivers. Again, if they did drivers would become employees, and, just like above, that would really mess things up.

    But, in order for Uber to gain legitimacy they will need to provide some services to help make up for the fact that they legally cannot provide these benefits to their contractors. Either that, or the federal government  will create a new type of employment status. The latter option seems unlikely.

    How can an independent third party company come in and save the day? By simply reapplying the fundamentals of insurance companies. Bare with me here.

    Insurance companies collect premiums from their members. From these premiums insurance companies make money in one of two ways.

    1. Underwriting income: the difference between premiums collected on insurance policies by the insurer, and expenses incurred and claims paid out
    2. Investment income: interest payments, dividends, capital gains collected upon the sale of a security or other assets, and any other profit that is made through an investment vehicle of any kind

    Insurance companies tend to actually lose money on underwriting and generate their profits from investment income. Take a look at publicly traded insurance companies stock prices. When the market crashed in 2008 insurance companies were hit especially hard. Look at historical stock price charts to see what I mean.

    The principle here is that a company (in this case an insurer) collects a large amount of cash up-front and has a long time horizon to pay it back. In the mean-time, that company can generate investment income that offsets expenses.

    A similar company could do the same thing to help alleviate the strain currently being felt in the sharing economy.

    Imagine a company, let’s call it S Capital.

    S Capital provides retirement matching for independent contractors. For every dollar an independent contractor puts in their individual retirement account, S Capital will match it up to 3%.

    S Capital only offers their matching service for contractors who’s parent company has partnered with S Capital. S Capital receives annual premiums from companies like Uber, Handy, and Postmates to provide this service to their contracting workforce.

    S Capital will generate revenue by investing premiums from parent companies, and also investing on behalf of the independent contractor. A vesting schedule will be in place for contractors to retain their matched contributions, and S Capital will have multiple years to generate income from every dollar it brings in.

    After the vesting schedule has completed the contractor can access their matched funds. The contractor get’s to enjoy the benefits of compounding interest, and S Capital makes a profit from generating more income from investing the initial premium. Everyone wins.

    I have written about this idea before. I actually submitted a similar idea for Ycombinator Fellowship. and posted my application on my blog.

    I don’t have the knowledge or experience to take on a problem as large as this one, that is why I am sharing it here. I really do think 3-5 years from now there will be a company that is doing something very similar to this. It seems almost inevitable.

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  • Building a Great Team is Hard

    At the core of any startup are the people. The founder(s) and whoever they bring on as employees are the lifeblood of that business. When a company is small, but growing, building a great team is a priority.

    The challenge of building a great team confronts all startup companies. Small businesses must demand a high level of return on their investment (employees), whereas large corporate or bureaucratic organizations can afford to have a handful of employees who do close to nothing. At a small company though, this could potentially be deadly.

    This is not to suggest that one employee should be so valuable that if they were to leave, the organization would collapse. (Think of the hit buy a bus theory). Rather, if one employee does not share the same passion and alignment with the company goals that others in the organization do, it could potentially cause negative effects.

    Bringing together 5, 10, or even 15 people to operate, grow and expand a small company is no easy task. This is something I am learning first-hand at MarketSmart.

    Sam Altman recently published his Startup Playbook. The second section of his guidelines for startup companies talks about building a great team. It is important.

    I am learning first-hand at MarketSmart what it takes to build a great team. A so-so team will not build a great company. It takes a united group of people to create something special.

    How to hire

    Hiring must be treated as a numbers game, it simply must. Think of a sales funnel. At the top you have hundreds of prospects, at the bottom you have a five signed contracts. At every step of the funnel you refine your prospects, leaving you with your most promising sales leads.

    Hiring at small companies should employ this same tactic. The consequences of not talking to enough candidates is deceivingly expensive and disruptive.

    At MarketSmart I have worked closely with our CEO to develop our Careers micro-site. On the site there is a short 10 question survey for all interested applicants. Questions attempt to make the applicant think, a noble cause in a world of “click-to-submit” job postings.

    This survey serves a dual purpose for MarketSmart and the candidate. One, it weeds out candidates who obviously are not interested in MarketSmart. Two it allows us (the company) to spend more time talking to people who genuinely are interested in us.

    For the candidates it has the same effect. Candidates will “opt out” and simply not apply if they are intimidated by the survey, or vice versa, candidates will relish at the opportunity to express themselves and share their interest.

    The more I interview, phone screen, and watch the hiring process play out, the more I think of it as dating. Dating is not easy, hiring is not easy.

    Be honest and transparent

    If you are trying to build a great team you should probably be honest with your employees. That extends to potential employees as well.

    When interviewing candidates I like to ask them about their most recent previous work experience. What did they like? What did they dislike? Why did they leave or get relieved? Etc.

    I am young and naive, but I find it interesting the number of people that mention being lied to by their previous employer.

    I doubt these organizations flat-out lied to these people – I simply can’t imagine that. What I suspect is that these companies “misspoke” during the hiring process. They needed you (the candidate), and were willing to tell you what you wanted to hear to make sure you took the job. Then, three months down the line when you were unhappy you went back on the job hunt and ultimately left.

    That is my suspicion, and from talking with candidates that is the story I have heard.

    So, when building a great team how can you avoid this? How can you avoid “misspeaking” during the interview process? At a small company one employee may very well wear many hats which makes outlining a specific positions roles and responsibilities difficult.

    One surefire way to avoid lying to candidates is to create a timeline. At MarketSmart we explain that the roles and responsibilities you are taking on can vary day to day, month to month. What I do during an interview is layout a twelve month timeline to help the candidate understand what role they would be filling now, and what role they could potentially be in then.

    I am honest, candid and forthright. Some people I talk to find this refreshing, others are intimidated by the lack rigidity in the plan.

    By being honest, open and transparent with potential candidates I am helping MarketSmart find the best fit. Building a great team is difficult, but being honest helps.

    Look for character

    Sam Altman wrote in his Startup Playbook:

    Good founders have a number of seemingly contradictory traits. One important example is rigidity and flexibility. You want to have strong beliefs about the core of the company and its mission, but still be very flexible and willing to learn new things when it comes to almost everything else.

    The same idea that he touches on applies to all employees of the organization. Good employees have strong character and contradictory traits.

    Traits are differentiated from skills. Skills can be learned, traits are more innate.

    At a startup company candidates who are willing to learn and of high character will be of more long term value than a similar candidate who has high technical ability but a limited desire to grow in the organization. When a team is small, 15 people are less, you need a core group of individuals who have traits that align with the company’s mission.

    As the company does space will open up for other individuals who are simply “looking for a job”.

    Building a great team is hard. It is necessary. And, it is fun.

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  • Agile Modeling & Activity Diagrams

    Recently I have been spending a considerable amount of my time developing an idea for a new business. I am working with the CEO of MarketSmart to develop an innovative application that could potentially reshape a niche portion of the non-profit world.

    Greg, the CEO of MarketSmart who I am working closely with has been giving me guidance during this process.

    For the past month or two I have been working on a “scope” document. (More on that below.) But now, I am beginning the process of creating activity diagrams and focusing on agile modeling.

    I whole hardheartedly intend to start my own business in the near future. My personal Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) for the next 3-5 years is to be operating my own company.

    The first day I interviewed for the web developer position at MarketSmart I mentioned that desire to Greg. In between working on client related tasks I have found myself making progress on this new product. I occasionally remind myself how fortunate I am to be working with a seasoned entrepreneur who is not only willing, but wanting to teach me anything and everything involved in this process.

    Staying late at the office to make progress on this project feels like I am taking night class. Who knew school could be fun.

    A few weeks back I posted a short article called Notes From Creating a New Product. I touched on four key theories I had picked up on during my first month of working with Greg on the new product.

    During that month I was focused on developing the product scope. For that I found myself using Microsoft Office Outline. In Outline mode I created headers that represented pages, and sub-headers that related to page elements and page functions. In addition to writing thousands of words in Outline mode I created a series of page mock-ups in Adobe Illustrator. The mock-ups showed how the user would sign up, enter their data and view their “dashboard”.

    Now, a few weeks later I have moved on from scoping out this idea, to modeling how users will interact with it. The goal here is to create a presentation that can be shared with technical professionals. These people should be able to look at this presentation and suggest what tech stack options are in play, and how long it would feasibly take to develop. I started to engage in this modeling process when I created page mock-ups in Illustrator, but that simply was the tip of the iceberg.

    Here is what I have been learning and researching. I plan to implement these new techniques for this project within the next two weeks.

    Activity Diagram

    Greg has a large network of friends, business partners and advisers. He took the scope document I created in Outline and the mock-ups I put into Powerpoint and shared them with two highly technical people. Their response was to have me create activity diagrams.

    So I researched and figured out what activity diagrams are.

    UML 2 activity diagrams are typically used for business process modeling, for modeling the logic captured by a single use case or usage scenario, or for modeling the detailed logic of a business rule. Although UML activity diagrams could potentially model the internal logic of a complex operation it would be far better to simply rewrite the operation so that it is simple enough that you don’t require an activity diagram. In many ways UML activity diagrams are the object-oriented equivalent of flow charts and data flow diagrams (DFDs) from structured development.

    State Diagram

    Next I was instructed to look into state diagrams. This was another term I had never heard before and more researching ensued.

    UML state machine diagrams depict the various states that an object may be in and the transitions between those states. In fact, in other modeling languages, it is common for this type of a diagram to be called a state-transition diagram or even simply a state diagram. A state represents a stage in the behavior pattern of an object, and like UML activity diagrams it is possible to have initial states and final states. An initial state, also called a creation state, is the one that an object is in when it is first created, whereas a final state is one in which no transitions lead out of. A transition is a progression from one state to another and will be triggered by an event that is either internal or external to the object.

    Unified Modeling Language

    After researching activity and state diagrams I did a google search for “uml”. The acronym was coming up a lot in my reading, and although it had not been mentioned by Greg I thought why not read more about it.
    Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a standardized modeling language that (from my research at least) is mainly used for software development. UML enables developers to create models of highly complex processes that can be easily interpreted by others.

    Agile Modeling

    After researching UML I found myself stumbling upon the phrase “agile modeling”. I have frequently seen the word agile and scrum pop up on hacker news, but I had never taken the time to research what either meant or referred to.

    While reading about both agile and scrum methodologies I found myself thinking about activity diagrams. Applying th ideas of scrum product development are further down the line. For now, my main priority is modeling user interactions with the application. For that, agile activity diagrams seem to be the way to go.

    Wireframes

    The last request Greg’s friends had of me was to create a wire frame sitemap. Although I enjoy designing in Illustrator, creating 50+ pages will be a task that I reserve for software more well suited. I plan on using Balsamiq to create a site map and show user flow throughout the app.

    And that is what I have been learning over the past few weeks. Fun stuff. Important stuff. Practical stuff. I can’t wait to put it in action!

  • Notes From Creating a New Product

    When I interviewed for an open position at MarketSmart I made it very clear to the CEO that I was passionate for entrepreneurship. I was hired as a web developer, and since then I have spent most of my time writing code. But, I have on occasion sat in on sales calls, made cold calls to potential clients, and received lessons from Greg, the CEO in startup financing.

    At MarketSmart I have been given the opportunity to learn how nearly all aspects of the business function. I leave work every evening with the same feeling I used to get when I would walk out of a calculus class. I take in a lot of important information throughout the day.

    About a month ago Greg approached me with an idea for a new product. For the past thirty days I have been working side by side with him to develop our plan of attack. I have learned a lot, actually more than a lot.

    I am in an extremely fortunate position to be working with an experienced entrepreneur in a real world setting. I am playing a major role in a project that could generate millions of dollars of revenue and be extremely beneficial for nonprofits.

    I have a rare opportunity to “build” a meaningful business with no financial risk. This is the type of experience that will pay off dividends when I found a company five or ten years from now.

    Having started up a “company” when I was a freshman in college I thought I had experience in developing a business. As I have learned over the past month, that experience is not nearly as practical as I thought.

    At MarketSmart we are developing this new product while also growing a multi-million dollar business.

    Here is what I have learned so far. These notes are for my own reference in a few years when I attempt to found something of my own.

    Ideas are worthless. Execution is priceless.

    This mantra has become overwhelmingly clear to me. An idea is awesome, it can be cool, it can even be great. But an idea is exactly that, it is in a idea. A business, a real revenue generating machine needs to be more than just an idea.

    To build a business you need a plan. Keep in mind this does not mean you need to write a standard business plan, rather I’m suggesting that you need to have every thought laid out before you begin spending money.

    Working with Greg on this new product has required hours of note taking, organizing and editing. We have taken the original idea, spun it around in every possible direction and then spent hours writing down every thought that came up in discussion.

    Next we (I) took these notes and developed a scope document. In this case it is simply a power-point with 30 slides that outline every single far-reaching idea we touched on in our discussions.

    The scope document is our plan. It serves as the blueprint for the products foundation.

    Don’t build an MVP, build a MFFP.

    Like many people I have read Eric Reis’ The Lean Startup. Reis preaches to the reader that they should develop a Minimum Viable Product before investing heavily in building their business.

    Greg brought this up in one of our earliest meetings. He agrees with Reis that the concept of an MVP is powerful and important but counters with his own acronym. He suggests building a Minimum Functional Flexible Product.

    The distinction between viable and functional is moot, but the idea of flexibility has been ingrained in my mind.

    The goal of a MFFP is to spend the necessary money (not the least, not the most) to develop a product that provides the the base functionality to the end user while also having the capacity to easily be extended upon.

    For example, the software that MarketSmart currently sells to some of the largest nonprofits in the world was developed so that a developer like myself (one that is not an expert) could come in and develop meaningful upgrades. I could not have created the MarketSmart software, but I sure as hell can build on top of it.

    That is the idea. Build a product that provides the must have functionalities while also keeping in mind that the product needs to be flexible enough to support the “nice to have” features down the road.

    Get other stakeholders involved.

    So far I have not played much of a role in this area of the products development. I have recognized though that it is very important to develop strategic relationships with people who hold power in the marketplace.

    I need to learn more about this.

    Identify influential people who will help market what it is you are selling.

    The previous note piggy-backs into this one. This is more of a coming to market strategy, but it is something I have identified as important thus far.

    You don’t want everybody to have access to your product at once. Greg has devised a really simple plan to get influential fundraisers excited about our new product before we even build it.

    He did the work here, but the principle will need to replicated in any future situation. When developing a new product you need to align with people who have influence over the market.

    More to come

    I will be adding to this list in future blog posts. I want to create a repository that I can reference a few years from now. Stay tuned.

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  • 5 Traits of Successful Companies

    There are over 30 million businesses in the United States. Approximately 125 million in the entire world. Those are overwhelming statistics.

    When you hear numbers like those it is hard not to ask yourself a few questions. How can this many businesses survive? How can each business differentiate from one another? How is the world not entirely stuck in “perfect competition”? How can my company achieve more than the millions of others who are already operating?

    By researching companies that have achieved the most success an entrepreneur can gain insights into what makes a company operate well. There are key traits that extremely profitable organizations tend to share. These characteristics are not requirements for achieving popularity and profit. Rather, they are merely indicators of businesses that are following (intentionally or unintentionally) in the footsteps of those who have built great organizations before them.

    Vision

    Large, powerful, and profitable organizations have a clear and concise vision.

    Take for example IKEA. Their vision statement is two sentences – clear and concise;

    At IKEA our vision is to create a better everyday life for many people. Our business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.

    A company’s vision is their road map – it indicates what they currently do and what they want to become. These few sentences are intended to serve as a guide for executives when making decisions that impact the future of the company.

    At the core of successful organizations across the globe is a strong, well thought out vision.

    Integrity

    Having a well crafted vision statement is great. Having the integrity to stand by that vision is absolutely necessary.

    Organizations that do not wholeheartedly believe in their vision do not last very long. Where as companies whose executives, board members and employees all believe in the vision do.

    Take for example the worlds second largest automobile manufacturer Volkswagen. The most recent vision statement released by the company was this:

    The Group’s goal is to offer attractive, safe and environmentally sound vehicles which can compete in an increasingly tough market and set world standards in their respective class.

    Earlier this month Volkswagen’s CEO resigned from his position amid a global scandal revolving around falsified emissions test results. This is a perfect example of an organization not maintaining the integrity necessary to grow their business.

    Integrity and honesty go hand in hand. Any company that aims for prolonged profitability and success must stick by these two mores.

    Leadership

    People need leaders. People want leaders. At the center of every successful organization is a passionate, dedicated and driven leader.

    Take for example Elon Musk, the executive of Tesla, SpaceX, and a handful of other companies. As a leader of these different organizations, Musk believes strongly in their independent visions, and also has the integrity (as of writing this blog post Elon Musk has not done anything that makes me or anyone else question his honesty) to lead them in a positive direction.

    Musk is outspoken, outgoing, and never out of reach. He stands up for his companies and his products, while also making himself accessible to his employees and consumers.

    Large, profitable and popular companies have a leader. That leader has a face, she or he is well liked, well-respected and highly regarded.

    Value

    At the crux of a successful company is the idea of value. Without providing value to consumers a business would not exist in the long run.

    Value and vision tend to fall hand in hand. At least, that is to say that the value a company provides and the vision the company has should align with one another.

    Take for example the largest business in the world, Apple. What value does Apple provide to their consumers? Steve Job’s answered that question many years ago when he said;

    [Apple is here] to make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind.

    Apple improves the quality of life for their consumers. That is their value proposition. A less overarching example comes directly from the organization that I currently work for.

    At MarketSmart we work tirelessly to help nonprofits raise more money while drastically reducing their costs.

    Strategic Planning and Innovation

    Many companies fail even when they have the four previously mentioned traits of successful companies. Vision, integrity, leadership and value only get an organization so far.

    Remember the statistics from above, over 125 million organizations are competing for profitability and popularity at the same time. Surely some of those companies will go under even though they share characteristics with successful organizations.

    This is the result of strategic planning and innovation. Hugely successful businesses are constantly planning their next product or service. Companies that become complacent and cease to innovate will inevitability lose market-share to competitors.

    This is why vision statements are fluid, they can change annually, monthly, weekly.

    Again, let’s look at Apple. Their track-record of innovation and product development falls hand in hand with their vision statement. Each product the company releases has a strategic place in their long-term plan. There is a reason that Apple is the largest company in the world.

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