Thursday 10 April 2014
Got an idea?
Getting an idea to production is easy these days. You just have to love crowdsourcing!
I personally think you should do all the work on the business plan (although you can crowd source it as well), but after that:
Product visual design (to display on funding sites)
www.freelancer.com
Product funding
https://angel.co/ , https://www.kickstarter.com (plus about 4 other good ones)
Logo and web design
http://99designs.com.au/
Product specification (scrum/waterfall)
www.freelancer.com
Product build (two of a hundreds of small quality international dev houses)
http://versatile-soft.com/ , http://dhanushinfotech.com/
Free hosting service for tiny apps (for dev/test or until success comes your way)
http://aws.amazon.com/ or http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/
Product testing
http://99tests.com/
Marketing
Lots of interesting options here... Something for you to look at!
After that.... What you want to do with it is up to you!
Ross.
PS. That isn't an exhaustive list and you probably have your favourites which aren't listed, I am just pointing out how the world has changed in the last 3 years.
The world has changed. Tiny components of software and hardware can now be purchased online at an extremely lost cost with open architecture platforms. The wave of transformation has been occurring for decades, but the speed of change is increasing, but still we constantly see things which make us question why? Why do it that way?
Thursday 3 April 2014
Competitor Analysis?
Quite some time ago, I was involved with a company that was expanding their business into a completely new territory. I was the most senior technologist in the company and had a voice at the highest level.
A significant body of work had been undertaken prior to entry into the new market. It was very comprehensive, but after analysis I noticed one glaring omission in my opinion. There was no competitor analysis. For me, this was deeply concerning.
At the next stakeholder meeting I strongly recommended undergoing a complete competitor analysis otherwise I considered the company was going into the venture partially blind. Unfortunately I wasn't persuasive enough as the organisation wanted to move quickly. After struggling for several years, something I consider fairly predictable, they eventually conducted a thorough competitor analysis.
Fortunately throughout our operations at Michael Hill, competitor analysis is part and parcel of ongoing business. Having a deep understanding of the competitors business model and the cause of success is essential in my opinion. This approach has benefited my current organisation greatly and some of our greatest knowledge has been learnt from outside the industry.
If you find yourself reviewing a proposal without a thorough competitor analysis being completed, don't let it go ahead without one. Use this as ammunition, especially if the initiative is of strategic value.
For your own personal growth, I do recommend spending time gathering a deep understanding of other companies business models outside your industry and considering the effect of their application to your current organisation.
Have a great day!
Ross.
A significant body of work had been undertaken prior to entry into the new market. It was very comprehensive, but after analysis I noticed one glaring omission in my opinion. There was no competitor analysis. For me, this was deeply concerning.
At the next stakeholder meeting I strongly recommended undergoing a complete competitor analysis otherwise I considered the company was going into the venture partially blind. Unfortunately I wasn't persuasive enough as the organisation wanted to move quickly. After struggling for several years, something I consider fairly predictable, they eventually conducted a thorough competitor analysis.
Fortunately throughout our operations at Michael Hill, competitor analysis is part and parcel of ongoing business. Having a deep understanding of the competitors business model and the cause of success is essential in my opinion. This approach has benefited my current organisation greatly and some of our greatest knowledge has been learnt from outside the industry.
If you find yourself reviewing a proposal without a thorough competitor analysis being completed, don't let it go ahead without one. Use this as ammunition, especially if the initiative is of strategic value.
For your own personal growth, I do recommend spending time gathering a deep understanding of other companies business models outside your industry and considering the effect of their application to your current organisation.
Have a great day!
Ross.
The world has changed. Tiny components of software and hardware can now be purchased online at an extremely lost cost with open architecture platforms. The wave of transformation has been occurring for decades, but the speed of change is increasing, but still we constantly see things which make us question why? Why do it that way?
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