What are your business by-products?

One thing that got me thinking at SXSW was Jason Fried’s suggestion that we should work out what are the by-products of our businesses. What takes no additional effort to create, but are natural by-products of what we do? I kind of visualised it as the sawdust on the floor. In my own business and through my story, my natural by-product is know-how that I have repacked into a series of books: “Juggle!”, “Leap!” and now “Unplan…”.

As I write this I’m listening to a trailer for Zappos Insights. What’s ‘Zappos Insights’? It’s a management programme/ learning package developed by Zappos, the online retailer. It’s not what they ‘do’ as the core business, but in getting such great feedback from the marketplace on the Zappos factor, and requests for ‘how can we create a culture like Zappos at our company?’ they swept up their sawdust – their know-how – and packaged it into a development and learning programme.

So, what’s your by-product and what are you going to do about it?

*Picture credit Waldoj on Flickr

Ten Things You Need To Know from Rework

I really enjoyed ‘Rework’ by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the founders of 37signals. I found some similarities in my own book ‘Juggle!’ in the theme of rethinking work and business. I have already evangelised about ‘Rework’ on my Unplan Your Business blog so to give you some value, here are my Ten Things You Need To Know from Rework:

1. Ignore people who say you’re wrong.
2. Forget business planning, forget about the details early on. Scribble ideas with a marker pen not a fine pen!
3. Rethink success. You don’t have to build a big business, why not build a profitable, sustainable and comfortable business instead?
4. Scratch your own itch: design a product or a solution for something you need yourself.
5. Put everyone in your organisation on the front line from time to time. Don’t let people remain in their departmental silos.
6. Lo-fi works. You don’t need comlex gadgets or over-engineered solutions. look at the success of the Flipcam – very basic, does what it needs to with ‘no bells or whistles’.
7. What are the by-products of what your business does? Sell those by-products.
8. Meetings can be toxic. A one hour meeting with 10 people is not one hour lost, its ten hours. Have shorter more focused meetings. If it only takes 7 minutes, don’t waste 30 or 60 minutes.
9. Long lists don’t get done – focus on attainable goals for better productivity and morale.
10. Inspiration is perishable – if you want to do something, do it now (later, you won’t be pumped): so if you’re inspired on a Friday, do it on a weekend. When you’re high on inspiration you can do two weeks work in 24 hours.

 I really think Jason and David are on to something, seeking to redefine ‘business’ and ‘entrepreneurs’: 

“You don’t need an MBA, a fancy suit; just an idea, a touch of confidence and a push to get started”.