My personal story always used to include… “If I wasn’t an entrepreneur I would have been a teacher.”
Yesterday I was preparing for my Sales presentation (and facing an empty workshop and Zoom room) as part of the ‘Knowledge’ component of our engineering growth for entrepreneurs of scalable companies program.
I realized I was now that ‘teacher’ or as one of my entrepreneurs I’m mentoring told me ‘guru’ in Hindi.
Mentor, Coach, Advisor, Teacher, Manager, Leader, Mother, Father or Guru.
They are mostly the same.
My question is “Who is the teacher and who is the student?”
A few people have asked me how startups/scaleups have been impacted during the past 9-months.
Here is my general perspective:
If a startup/scaleup has been luckily funded before March more funding has been available and lots more helpful hands-on mentoring by their angels or lead funders.
If you were a lucky startup/scaleup in a ‘covid accelerated’ industry funding has not been a problem.
In fact in our world we have seen an increase in funding over the past 6 months with a very healthy pipeline for the next 6 months.
Early stage startup entrepreneurs without experience of economic valleys (2000 internet bubble, 2008 sub-prime, 2020 Covid-19) and without a mentor struggled
However in most cases if they ask for help, have a good team, are technically brilliant and most importantly are coachable they have pulled through stronger with regular accountability checkins.
*Much as in Leadership; You get wartime leaders and peacetime leaders.
The same is true for Entrepreneurs.
Bottom line though, more funding across the board (Angel, Seed, Series A & B) needs to flow to the right place and opportunities in our industry.
ARK Investment Management LLC’s “Big Ideas 2024” report outlines ten major emerging technologies that are expected to significantly impact the global economy and transform various industries.
Key Emerging Technologies
AI: Revolutionizing productivity across industries, with generative tools driving efficiency.
Public Blockchains: Disrupting finance with decentralized systems and smart contracts.
Multiomic Sequencing: Unlocking new health insights and reducing drug development costs.
Energy Storage: Enabling broader use of renewable energy and electric vehicles.
Robotics: Enhancing manufacturing and logistics with expanding capabilities.
Electric Vehicles: Sales projected to grow significantly by 2030, driven by cheaper batteries.
Autonomous Mobility: Transforming urban transport with self-driving vehicles.
Drone Delivery: Revolutionizing logistics, with billions in projected revenues.
Cryptography: Boosting digital security and blockchain growth.
Orbital Aerospace: Advancing space exploration with reusable rocket technology.
ARK’s research shows these technologies could accelerate global GDP growth from 3% to 7% annually, with disruptive innovation’s market value growing from 16% to over 60% of global equities by 2030.
Generative AI and Autonomous AI lead the way, transforming industries with independent decision-making capabilities and creative innovations.
Adaptive AI and sustainable technology gain traction, focusing on dynamic responsiveness and eco-friendly solutions.
Total Experience (TX) emerges as a top trend, blending customer, employee, and user experiences to improve satisfaction and engagement.
Human-Centric Security technologies, such as AI TRiSM and cybersecurity mesh, prioritize user trust and data protection.
Several technologies from previous cycles, including health passports and social distancing tech, have faded in relevance, while AI-powered tools, AI-augmented development, and responsible AI remain critical to growth in 2024
My most impressive (and told) customer service story was from an unlikely source, a steak restaurant (Browns, Rivonia, South Africa).
After a great steak (with an impressive Creme Brûlée), I enjoyed Red wine and a conversation with a great friend. It was only the next day that I was impressed.
The manager called me. He thought one of us had left a jacket. He just wanted to thank me for visiting them last night. He also wanted to check if everything was to my liking.
Every morning there was a process of calling every booking from the previous evening’s reservations. Not only for quality control but because he (they) really cared about their customers.
How many business owners take the time to call every customer? How many check in to see how everything is at the end of the month or project?
In that 1 act, there are so many opportunities to improve your business.
As it costs 6x more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one.
A simple way for ‘non sales’ founders to think and do sales. The success rate of selling to an existing customer is 60-70% versus 5-20% for new customers.
Segment your past 24 months (to factor in 12 mths+ of Covid) customers based on a very simple model…
1. Save all your customer contacts centrally and in the ‘cloud’ (Your email contacts are a good starting point if you don’t have a CRM system yet).
2. List the top 10 customers from the past period with their amounts (You’ll be surprised by ‘small’ consistent customers vs inconsistent ‘big’ spending customers).
3. Assess the buying patterns of the top customers (frequency, types of products, ave amounts)
4. ‘ Label’ 4 tiers of customers:
I.e. ‘Entry Level Eddy’: Buys once, a low priced product or only 1 product.
Repeat Purchase Rita’: Buys frequently, average priced products, average of 2 products.
‘VIP Velani’: Your biggest contributing customer segment; average 3 products. According to Signore Pareto 80% of your revenue will come from 20% customers.
‘VVIP Piet’: Ensure that you don’t have customers in this segment, however ask yourself “What do I need to offer or do to increase my VIP customers to this level?”
5. Design activities to grow and maintain these customers.
6. Pricing. Only have 3 price points (humans are bad at making decisions over 3 choices).
Have an entry level price (probably your current price point), offer a larger product/service offering as your desired price point for the majority of your customers and finally have your VVIP price that is 3-4x this price.
What this does is provide a pricing ‘anchor’ so customers will take up your middle product offering. This will increase your average revenue per customer.
Growth by Colab 