714. From Idea to Entrepreneur

[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of the Co-Links Illusion where my goal is to empower you with awareness and actionable insights. Quick question, have you ever found yourself moaling over an idea again and again? Believe in, you have the opportunity to become an entrepreneur, to grow a business but

[00:00:28] you cannot seem to take the steps forward. Let me tell you something, family, you are not alone. A lot of people have this challenge and today I'm going to unpack four key challenges that have tended to stop people from getting ahead and getting down the field so to

[00:00:44] speak. And not only am I going to talk about the challenges but I'm going to give you some tools to hopefully help you overcome those barriers. Hey, family, did you know that 90 percent?

[00:00:56] Not a 10 people have a wonderful idea but don't get it beyond the idea stage to executing on the idea. Meaning, don't launch the business, don't become the entrepreneur, etc. Do you know that again, 90 percent of people don't take that next step?

[00:01:14] And so what I want to do today is, you know, a lot of things we talk about entrepreneurship, we highlight the stories that are ever in front of us, right? And we talk about often as we do with many things in life, the top of the iceberg.

[00:01:26] What we can see above the water, that's great. What we can see above what happens beneath the water. What are the challenges that you can expect and then hopefully have a line of sight to how you might be at an overcome them.

[00:01:38] So I'm going to talk about four challenges for that person who has the idea, you know you have something you want to do need to do call to do, feel purpose to do. But how do you get beyond the next steps? So let's start with the first one.

[00:01:49] The first challenge that most folks face is actually identifying a viable and I want to underscore viable, a viable business idea. So it's one thing to have an idea. It's another thing to even conceptually before you execute, get it to the point of feeling as if it's viable.

[00:02:08] And some of those things within that is, do you have a unique selling proposition? Is there something in it that you believe positions you to be unique in the marketplace? And some folks have difficulty in distinguishing that idea from existing things in the market.

[00:02:26] And so it takes some work, right? The second thing is ensuring there's actual market demand for it. So sometimes we have very good ideas but does anyone want to purchase it? Is someone on the purchase it? Now I have a slight caveat here.

[00:02:41] A lot of times we have to tell people what they need and want. I mean, that's just true. So there's a balance there. There's a young and young, if you will, chicken and egg thing of, well, sometimes you want to find and make sure there's a market.

[00:02:54] Sometimes you may have to have a mindset of, oh, I'm going to make a market. Okay? And the third thing is the feasibility analysis. Can it be done technologically? It's cetera. Can it be done? Is there a way to build structure around that idea?

[00:03:08] And so there's some tools that you can use. I'm about tools, you know me. So if you go to the corling solution.com for slash resources, one tool I added to there is the lean canvas and I'm a fan of the lean canvas for the following reasons.

[00:03:22] The idea behind the usage of it is documenting your idea in an hour or less. And an hour less go through a number of questions that help you vet it out. What is it? Who are you going to serve? How is it delivered?

[00:03:38] How you come up with a small estimation of the finances, the inflows and the outflow. So I'm a huge fan of lean canvas. The second thing is Google Trends. Google Trends is available to all of us.

[00:03:50] And you can use Google Trends to find out and get a sense of the market size we talked about. If any of you have ever watched any of the shows on TV, I don't even have the throw names out. You know them.

[00:04:02] What people go on with their ideas. They talk about the market. If I could just get expressing the market. Listen. A lot of times people criticize for thinking that way in terms of expressing why to some of the market.

[00:04:10] But the fact is looking up and understanding what the market is. And even if you said, hey, I think I can get 0,0001% of that. That's the other thing, right? Being reasonable in your estimates. It's starting somewhere.

[00:04:25] It is having a bit of financial numerical clarity about what you're talking about. Another tool I would encourage you to use is Stetista. It's a website where you can get industry information. So pick a market, pick an industry. You can go to Stetista.

[00:04:43] And you can say, hey, I'm interested in the electronics field. Man, they have reports there. And I'll say this upfront. There's a certain amount of information. You can get for free and then there's certain pay gauge. What are going to want you to pay for it?

[00:04:55] The amount that you can get for free, though, excuse me, free, though, is really helpful. And the last thing I would say is don't forget the ability to survey people. A lot of times when you are wrestling with your idea, there's a lot of internal gymnastics.

[00:05:11] Don't keep it all internal. Talk to some folks about your idea. You be, I think, encouraged by how many people want to talk about it as well as using tools like survey monkey, which still has a free piece you can use as well to survey some people

[00:05:26] who are not on a short survey. I am thinking about doing, building the blank. I have five questions that if you answered them, it would be extremely helpful for me. And again, you'll be surprised by the number of people willing to do that.

[00:05:41] But now he's the second thing. Funding. Funding is always, I believe, always is probably too strong use in most cases. However, in this case, I feel as if I'm on a good ground to say, always funding is always an issue.

[00:05:56] And there are a couple of things underneath that. One is the initial capital. So how will you raise the money to even get the idea out of there? Now, one of the things I want to say is this we have come from errors.

[00:06:09] A lot of us were a little older and I believe some younger folks probably feel the same way where you want to launch the full thing from the get go. You want to get out there and do the whole thing.

[00:06:20] And I remember this experience, I was at an organization in Chicago all state. I can say that was working on all state, running a new division, doing certain things. And it kind of comes from that mentality as well.

[00:06:29] Build the product, people want, get the whole thing out there for marketing, plan, all the glitz to glam, the branding, everything. And I had a personal team who interrupted me nicely and said, well, maybe we could take

[00:06:41] a little bit of different approach and be more agile on how we do this. And for those who understand agile, it's, well, you do some work. You make, you do some review, you make adjustments and you keep going.

[00:06:52] And so you move from that with some of us will call that waterfall mentality of doing a whole lot of stuff in the next up a whole lot of stuff than finally releasing it too. Let's come up with a minimal viable product.

[00:07:07] Let's come up with something we can put in people's faces to let them experience what we're talking about and get some feedback. See if it works. I'm at this agency. It was so interesting because they came in and they told us about things they did for

[00:07:20] other clients, for example, they talked about lipstick and things such as that. And I said, listen, we do enough to create what the case would look like in its final form, but it's clearly not, it may be plastic. We may have made it out of materials.

[00:07:33] We get a gut from the five and dime. I'm elaborate a little bit. Excuse me. And, but we get enough that we feel comfortable going to a store and tell people we want to test this conceptual new color out this new packaging.

[00:07:50] So on a so forth and will you try this? And they said, people try it and they ran down a number of different types of products, such as that where it's good enough that people get the idea of what it is.

[00:08:01] They can hold, they can touch it, they can feel it. They can experience it and then move on. So that is one of my points of encouragement is don't think about all the capital to launch it. Think about what you need to create a minimal viable product contest.

[00:08:16] The second thing is people have challenged attracting investors. Well, who is going to put in on this thing with me? And so many times, of course, you think about traditional banks, maybe smaller banks that

[00:08:29] may be more appropriate and more open until you, you may think about private capital venture capital, etc. Yes, that's a thing. And then the third thing is well, even if you get how I manage all of this, the inflows,

[00:08:41] the outflows, the expenses, the accounts, payables, receables, ah, I don't know what to do. Three tools to put in front of you. So one conceptually, one of the tools that has helped folks a lot and I'm sure this is not new to many is Kickstarter.

[00:08:56] A place where you can lay out the idea again, provide the concept, what you want to do, how you will use them, etc. And use that crowd funding platform to help you raise some initial capital. Plenty have done it.

[00:09:11] If you go to kickstarted.com, you can read some of the case studies, get some of the best practices and easily set up a campaign. I'm not saying it's easy to execute but easily design and set up a campaign. The second thing is angel list.

[00:09:27] So that's a list of people who have already raised their hands and said, I'm looking for opportunities to fund angel list. Think about it. People who said, I've got a little extra money. I may have a lot of extra money.

[00:09:42] And I'm looking for the new thing because I don't have all the ideas. I need to fund some ideas. So I'm looking to be quote unquote matched, make with people who have ideas. So it's a kind of what they call two sided marketplace where funders are matched with

[00:10:00] would be people who need funding. And so that could be you. And then last but not least, easy lay up in terms of managing the financials quickbooks all day. I can't. I've not yet found a better solution. And over 10 plus years, maybe 15 years, quickbooks is just easy.

[00:10:17] There's an online version or a version. You can put on your PC if you use the online version. You also get the mobile app with it, but literally every expense you get, every income

[00:10:26] point you get, you can make it all go through quickbooks and another great self service design tool that will help you understand how to use it as you go. So now the third thing that lets dive into this one a little bit is building a strong team.

[00:10:42] There is not an entrepreneur that's doing it that does not have a strong team. You cannot do it all by yourself. Even if you understood all the different parts that need to be done.

[00:10:53] Let's say you're running the factory, looking at the conveyor belt and you say I understand everything that's going to flow down a belt and how to do each point of it. The fact is you cannot do it not particularly if you want to scale and continue to grow

[00:11:07] the company. And that's the difference too. When you go from idea to entrepreneurship, you're moving from being a solo player to growing a company. And in order to have a company, you must have some people.

[00:11:18] So a couple of things to think about that and their challenge one is, well how do you recruit them? How do you find the right folks? That is often a challenge for people. And it's a combination of hard skills meaning the technical skills, the functional skills

[00:11:31] and the soft skills. Those things that we talk about a lot such as EQ and coping and resilient in all those attributes and qualities that fall under that bucket of soft skills. The thing is, then if you get the folks, you have to manage team dynamics.

[00:11:49] How do you ensure that everyone in the playground, so to speak, plays well together? And it's not about how nice folks are but it's about can you construct a culture in which people will work together productively whether you are there or not.

[00:12:06] And I would really love to underscore that point. Whether you are there or not, you can't always be in the room in every meeting, etc. So the team needs to be able to operate without you.

[00:12:16] And then the third thing is retention and holding onto those folks, you will hear from a lot of people who had the opportunity to lead and manage people that man finding great people is one thing and then having them stay is a whole another thing.

[00:12:31] So first and foremost, again, back to tools because that's what it's about. First foremost, use somebody obvious tools right in front of you. And then LinkedIn, hard to find a better place to get to people and search for people with the right skills, talent, expertise that you need.

[00:12:49] And so use LinkedIn unashamedly, right? Network where people hear the other thing is you can see their references and people who would recommend them if you don't know them, you can see if there's a connection between you and someone else in the middle that can make an introduction.

[00:13:03] And even before the introduction give you a few words that would suggest you should want the introduction. And then the second thing when they talk about team dynamics is figure out how you will communicate best.

[00:13:15] A lot of people like to use Slack, some people like to use Microsoft Teams, some people were rather safe. Not doing that weird. We'll do email if we're virtual. We'll do Zoom. I think you need to test into what's going to work best for you and your team.

[00:13:31] And I would also underscore you. You should make sure it feels good for you as the leader because you're going to need to use the most and you're going to need to demonstrate the use of it. Be challenged of executing the business plan.

[00:13:45] And so for many, the first thing comes to their mind is, well, shoot. Business plan. I have a business plan. I need to create a business plan. Yes, that's the first underlying challenge of executing business plan. Actually creating a comprehensive business plan.

[00:14:00] And here's the way to think about it. The business plan is simply the roadmap of the steps you're going to take to get it done. The business model, the goals, the strategies, so on and so forth.

[00:14:10] And so yes, a part of the concept, Senate, a part of the reason to believe in terms of the proof and the market. But the biggest part is what will you actually do? What does the work look like?

[00:14:22] And so that has to happen in order for you to have a business. You need to plan the second thing is marketing and sell strategy. So once you create this beautiful product or service, once you're able to get it out

[00:14:34] into people's, excuse me, onto the shelves or your virtual store and line one of the case may be how are you marketing it? How will you make sure people are aware of it? That's a big challenge for a lot of people.

[00:14:46] Because you have some, you have a couple different type of people, people who are good at ideation and developing new things. And then you have some other people who are good at going out and selling it.

[00:14:55] And so back to the point of people, as you think about people for your team, if you know you're more of the ideation person, not the seller, find a seller to be a partner.

[00:15:05] If you know you're a seller, but not the ideator, you can't keep the ideas going and developing, find that person a partner with you. The third thing that a lot of people struggle with. And this is a big one is legal and compliance.

[00:15:18] Yes, when you run a business, you're going to face a lot of legal things. You think from business formation to franchise taxes for your state and maybe county to setting up payroll and all the paperwork that goes with the unfortunately.

[00:15:34] There is a lot of administration that goes along with launching a business. And it, it is what it is. I don't know how to tell you get around it. As you grow and develop, certainly you can delegate it people in your team, but initially

[00:15:45] you will have to do it. So being eyes wide open about those legal and compliance issues can help you now. There's always some of the tools to think about. One of the tools that I've left to use over the years is live plan.

[00:15:57] Liveplanned.com can help you begin to put those plans together, comprehensive plans. So remember first time I told you, and the first thing of getting that viable business idea together, that's lean canvas.

[00:16:11] That's the thing you use in less than an hour to see if you have a viable idea to understand again what the market is, what the cash flow can look like. The inputs and outputs, the target audience, all those different things.

[00:16:23] But now you're going to further and you need to do the full business plan. Liveplanned is a great tool to use. And it gives you step by step guidance inside of it. All the tools that I'm talking to you about have step by step guidance inside of it.

[00:16:37] The second thing for marketing and sales, I would say look around. Most people are going to tell you to use Salesforce to use HubSpot. You're going to so far, those are tried and trusted tools for sure. But they also come with a pretty decent price tag.

[00:16:53] I'm a fan of Overloop. Overloop is a pretty nice tool that you can go into. It's much lower in cost but you can develop your contact list within it. You can develop email campaigns, script them out even. LinkedIn campaigns.

[00:17:07] If you can believe that, reaching out to LinkedIn contacts and such for you and automating those different things. And yes, it's a CRM. So it has the tracking inside of it, et cetera. So I'm just a fan of Overloop.

[00:17:18] And then last but not least, on the legal and compliant side two things. One, develop a relationship with the local attorney that can help you. One of the things you can always do is go to the small business resource center in your state.

[00:17:31] Every state has a small business resource center. So you may have to do a little research. But if you Google and say, I live in Arkansas, Arkansas, small business resource center, you will find one.

[00:17:43] And they will have people that can help you with least of it in initial stages of the legal and compliance points. And then as you grow, you may use other things like your own lawyer, you end to use

[00:17:52] I encourage people to use legal Zoom and other quote unquote self service driven things that we also, you don't have to pay a retainer but you pay as you use which is huge when you're first starting to avoid what I call like subscription fees and whatnot to

[00:18:07] extend that you could pay for usage. That is helpful for your cash flow. So again, family, there are four challenges. I've given you tools for any of them. Go to the CoilinkSolution.com. For slash resources for that link, canvas piece and use it.

[00:18:23] Hey, family, let me know if this information was helpful to you. Please, shoot me an email. James Rousseau at the CoilinkSolution.com or hit me on any of my socials at James Rousseau SR. Let me know if the points were helpful, the understanding of the challenges.

[00:18:41] If you've tried some of the tools, let me know if you've downloaded the Lean Canvas or also if you've been on a journey and you found some other challenges or some other tools I'd love to know about it again.

[00:18:54] James Rousseau at The CoilinkSolution.com or at James Rousseau SR. Think at James Rousseau's senior on any of the social platforms. Until next time, be informed, be empowered, be accountable. God bless.