It was painful to get out of bed. The 8-hour hike straight up and down the side of a mountain in Chilean Patagonia had me not wanting to move at…
The post 5 Surprisingly Simple Ways to Stay Productive on the Road appeared first on Natalie Sisson's The Suitcase Entrepreneur.
Awesome very interesting Read More »
Who needs to learn how to read? After all, we all learned how to read fairly early in life, usually…
The post How to Read appeared first on Copyblogger.
This guest post is authored by Guy Raz (@guyraz), the Michael Phelps of podcasting. Guy is the creator and host of many popular podcasts, including How I Built This, Wisdom from the Top, and The Rewind. Guy is also the co-creator of the acclaimed podcasts TED Radio Hour and Wow in the World, a podcast for children. He’s received the Edward R. Murrow Award, the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize, the National Headliner Award, the NABJ Award… basically all the awards.
His brand-new book is titled How I Built This: The Unexpected Paths to Success from the World’s Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs. Past podcast guest Adam Grant has this to say about it: “[This book is] the mother of all entrepreneurship memoirs. It’s a must-read for anyone who wants to start a business, grow a business, or be inspired by those who do.”
What follows is an exclusive chapter — “Go In Through the Side Door” — from How I Built This.
A funny thing happens when you start to find success with a new business. You suddenly find yourself face-to-face with a host of people who are none too happy to see you. These people have a name. They’re called competitors. And whether they’ll admit it to you or not, many of them will try to do everything within their power to legally — and sometimes not so legally — shut you out. It’s a strategy deployed by the big fish in every pond once they notice a new, young fish swimming around and getting bigger by gobbling up the scraps they previously considered too small to care about.
In 1997, as the personal computer business approached 100 million units in annual sales and the dot-com bubble began to grow in earnest, Microsoft was one of the biggest fish in a pond that was about to swamp the world. Late that summer, a Microsoft group vice president named Jeff Raikes sent a now-famous email titled “Go Huskers!” to Warren Buffett, a fellow Nebraska native, describing Microsoft’s business in an effort to get him to invest in the company. In the email, Raikes likens the sturdiness and growth potential of Microsoft’s operation to that of Coca-Cola and See’s Candies (which Buffett had owned since 1972), in no small part because Microsoft’s revolutionary flagship product — the Windows operating system — had created a “toll bridge” that every PC maker would have to cross if they expected consumers to buy their machines.
The graphical user interface that made Windows revolutionary also made it wildly popular, which had the additional effect of creating a “moat,” as Raikes described it, between Microsoft and its competitors in the marketplace — one it was able to widen considerably with a 90 percent market share in productivity software applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, etc.) that were built on top of Windows and were equally popular. This, in turn, gave Microsoft tremendous “pricing discretion,” not just for its applications software but also for the licensing fees the company charged to other computer makers for Microsoft’s operating system software.
What Raikes did not say in his email, but what Buffett surely understood from his decades of experience, was that the wider the moat and the longer the toll bridge, the more aggressively Microsoft could wield its pricing discretion in order to cement its growing advantage in the software industry. They could use it as a carrot, by lowering the licensing fee for Windows as an incentive to get their browser and applications software preloaded onto as many new PCs as possible. They could use it as a stick, by withholding volume Windows licensing discounts to punish PC makers that refused their sweetheart deal, or by offering their applications software at cost or below in order to drive competitors such as Lotus, Novell, and Corel (remember them?) out of business.
Microsoft employed each of those strategies to great effect. A year after Raikes’s email to Buffett, Microsoft would surpass General Electric as the world’s most valuable company and stay in that position for five consecutive years.
Toll bridge. Moat. Pricing discretion. These are euphemisms for the economic term barriers to entry, which is itself a kind of euphemism for all the ways existing businesses shut out competitors and make it difficult for new businesses to compete in a given industry. These barriers are not just conscious strategies deployed by old guard blue-chippers; they are also natural forces that rise and shift within a market as competitors enter and exit, grow and shrink, evolve and pivot. They can become the biggest obstacles you will face as a new business looking to grab, secure, and expand your foothold in a market, because they are the mechanism by which you will either be crushed (if your competitors see you coming) or ignored (if the market doesn’t).
This is why if, like most new businesses, you aren’t doing something completely novel or you aren’t doing it in a totally new way or new place, you should be thinking long and hard about how else you might enter your market besides knocking on the front door and asking for permission to come in. This is something that female and minority entrepreneurs have long had to contend with, whether it means breaking through glass ceilings or breaking down walls built by prejudice. All of which is to say, figuring out how to sneak in through the side door is not new ground you will have to break. A legion of resourceful geniuses have come before you. And what many of them have discovered is that the side door isn’t just less heavily guarded, it’s often bigger. Or, as Peter Thiel put it in a 2014 lecture at the Stanford Center for Professional Development titled “Competition Is for Losers,” “Don’t always go through the tiny little door that everyone’s trying to rush through. Go around the corner and go through the vast gate that no one’s taking.”
A year earlier, in Chicago, without fully realizing it, this is precisely what Peter Rahal had begun to do with his idea for a minimalist Paleo protein bar. Peter hadn’t started out looking for a side door per se, but he knew that with RXBar he was trying to enter a very busy space. Remember, Peter had already conceded that “the market didn’t need another protein bar.” It was a conclusion that was more or less inescapable when he and his partner, Jared Smith, did their initial fact-finding tour of Whole Foods. If there was one fact they were sure to find, it was that protein bars were among the most crowded sectors in the entire food business. Long gone were the days when only one main brand existed in this segment, as Gary Erickson had found in the early 1990s when he developed Clif Bar to go up against PowerBar. Even a decade later, ample opportunity was there for someone like Lara Merriken in a way that did not exist for Peter in 2013.
Can you imagine what the shelves of that Chicago Whole Foods looked like when he and Jared walked in? How many linear feet of shelf space were choked with multiple flavors from how many different protein bar manufacturers? Can you envision Peter even being able to secure as much as a hello from a Whole Foods regional buyer the way Lara Merriken did? Especially when the buyer learned what Peter was pitching? Yet another protein bar?
Peter knew he wasn’t getting into Whole Foods through the front door. Fortunately, that was never his plan. “From the early days, the whole strategy was to make a product that is for CrossFit and for the Paleo consumer, and build it online,” he said. “We’d build a web store and sell directly to gyms. Consumers would be coming directly to us.” That meant a bar with no grains, no dairy, no peas or bean protein, and no sugar. Nothing quite like it existed.
It was just the kind of advantage that a startup could identify and exploit but a larger competitor couldn’t (or wouldn’t) see. “A lot of people look at niches, or look at a small segment, and it’s not big enough for them,” Peter explained. “But we would rather have a CrossFit customer in California than a local Chicago independent grocery store, because in the grocery store we’re among the sea of competition. Whereas in a CrossFit gym, we were by ourselves. RXBar was literally engineered and designed for that occasion. It was perfect.”
It was his side door. Those niches — CrossFit, Paleo, and direct-to-consumer — which were then on the verge of exploding and truly becoming the kind of vast gate that Peter Thiel was talking about, were the combination that unlocked opportunity for Peter Rahal and allowed RXBar the chance to take root, to stand out, and to grow, before his direct competitors could notice and stamp him out. By that point, those competitors included major multinationals like General Mills and Nestlé, which had acquired Lärabar and PowerBar, respectively, and they could have easily shut him out by erecting any number of barriers to entry into the protein bar market.
For Manoj Bhargava, the founder of 5-hour Energy, his side door into the energy drink market did not take the shape of a small niche, but rather of a small product. In early 2003, a few years removed from his retirement from a plastics business he’d turned around and made profitable, Manoj was attending a natural products trade show outside Los Angeles looking for inventions he might acquire or license in an effort to create a business that would generate an ongoing residual income stream for him in his post-plastics years.
Walking the floor of the show, he stumbled upon a new sixteen-ounce energy drink that produced long-lasting effects he’d never experienced with other energy drinks. “Well, this is amazing,” he said to himself, exhausted from a long morning of meetings and now energized enough to continue walking the trade show floor. “I could sell this,” he thought. The drink’s creators disagreed. They were “science guys with PhDs,” while he was “just a lowly business guy.” They refused to sell their invention to him or even offer him a license on their formula. When they effectively told him to hit the road, Manoj decided to hit the lab instead and to create his own version of the energy drink that had fueled him up and blown him away.
“I looked at their label and said, ‘I can do better than this. How hard can it be? I’ll figure it out,’” Manoj said. With the help of scientists from a company he’d founded for the express purpose of finding inventions just like this one, he had a comparable energy drink formula in a matter of months. It would turn out to be the easiest part of the process.
The hard part would be getting his invention into stores. “If I make another drink,” Manoj said of his thinking at the time, “I’ve got to fight for space in the cooler against Red Bull and Monster [Energy]. I’ve also got to fight Coke, Pepsi, and Budweiser for space. So you’re pretty much dead if you want to try that.”
He was dead because he would be fighting for a finite amount of space in brick-and-mortar stores, against the competition not just in his own niche but in the entire beverage industry, which is dominated by some of the biggest companies in the world. If you own a 7-Eleven, or you’re the general manager of a grocery chain like Kroger or Tesco, are you really going to turn over a Diet Coke, Mountain Dew, or Snapple rack to a new energy drink that no one has ever heard of ? Especially when, in 2003, energy drink sales had yet to really spike and there were already two major players — Red Bull and Monster Energy — in the nascent market. Even if you were inclined to give a little guy like Manoj Bhargava a shot, once the regional sales reps and distributors from Coca-Cola and PepsiCo got wind of your decision, they would likely wield their Microsoftesque price discretion against you like a baseball bat, or just pull their products from your store altogether.
Those were the barriers to entry that Manoj was looking at. If he was going to get into this market, he’d have to find some other way. That’s when it dawned on him. “If I’m tired,” he asked himself, “why am I thirsty also?” By which he meant, why should we have to chug ten to sixteen ounces of a cloyingly sweet liquid in order to get an energy boost? “It would be like Tylenol selling sixteen-ounce bottles,” Manoj explained by way of analogy. “I just want to do it quick. I don’t want to drink this whole thing,” he thought. This is how Manoj arrived at the idea of shrinking his product down from the standard sixteen-ounce drink to a two-ounce shot.
Quickly, everything changed. In less than six months, he’d hired a designer to make his distinctive label, and he’d found a bottler who could produce two-ounce versions of his energy formula. “And at two ounces,” he said, “it’s really not a drink, it’s a delivery system.”
This was 5-hour Energy’s side door. It wasn’t a drink, so it wasn’t an immediate threat to Red Bull or Monster Energy. At two ounces, it also didn’t need to be refrigerated or given a large, dedicated shelf, so retailers didn’t have to worry about space. They understood that the perfect spot for it would be at the cash register, right next to the Slim Jims and pickled eggs!
“It just belonged there,” Manoj said. “You could tell it just looked that way, that it should be there.” Moreover, because the ingredients that went into 5-hour Energy were actually less about energy and more about focus — “vitamins for the brain,” Manoj called them — he could position his product beyond the beverage verticals and outside the grocery or convenience store channels. In fact, the very first place he went with 5-hour Energy in 2004 was the largest vitamin store, GNC, which decided to put the product in a thousand of its stores.
GNC turned out to be a genius side door into the energy “drink” market for a couple reasons. The first is obvious — there was much less competition compared with grocery and convenience stores — but the second is more interesting. “It turns out GNC is always looking for new products, because once a product gets mass distribution, GNC is sort of out of it,” Manoj explained. “If it’s in Walmart, nobody’s going to buy it at GNC.” Essentially, GNC was an easier route to retail distribution than a place like 7-Eleven or Safeway, and thankfully the tolerance for a slow start was higher as well, because in the first week they sold only 200 bottles. “Which was horrible,” Manoj admitted. But they waited it out, manufacturer and retailer together, “and at the end of six months it was selling 10,000 bottles a week.” From there Manoj went to drugstores like Walgreens and Rite Aid, which snapped it up, and now 5-hour Energy is near the cash register in most stores basically everywhere.
Today, RXBar, which was acquired by Kellogg’s in 2017 for $600 million, is one of the fastest-growing brands in the protein bar space, and 5-hour Energy has a 93 percent share of the energy shot business. It is a market dominance that Manoj has enjoyed from nearly the beginning, with only a brief dip to 67 percent when all his competitors — Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Monster Energy, Red Bull — flooded the market with their own two-ounce-shot offerings . . . and failed. “Whenever people ask me what product are we like, I say we’re WD-40,” Manoj said near the end of our conversation, as we talked about 5-hour Energy’s phenomenal success. “We own the category. We’re the guys.”
This is the great irony of circumventing the barriers to entry that your competition’s apparent monopoly power constructs and then fighting your way in through the side door. If you’re successful, you stand a very good chance of achieving market domination of your own. Of digging and widening your own moat and building the toll bridge that crosses it. Of massive, unbelievable success. For many entrepreneurs, that is the goal.
Four days after Jeff Raikes sent his famous “Go Huskers!” email, Warren Buffett responded. His reply contained the normal conversational pleasantries, glowing commentary on Raikes’s analysis of his position on investing in Microsoft (Buffett wouldn’t), and an envious description of the company’s monopoly power: “It’s as if you were getting paid for every gallon of water starting in a small stream, but with added amounts received as tributaries turned the stream into an Amazon.” At the very beginning of his lecture in 2014, Peter Thiel echoed this sentiment in his own way. “I have a single idée fixe that I am completely obsessed with on the business side,” he said in his characteristic, hitched speaking style, “which is that if you’re the founder-entrepreneur starting a company, you always want to aim for monopoly, and you always want to avoid competition.” You want to be the only one directing traffic and collecting tolls across the widest moat possible.
I mention all this because being really good at going through the side door is an amazing, and sometimes necessary, skill. But it can also be a double-edged sword. It can get you off the ground and set you up for fantastic growth, but it can get you in a lot of trouble, too. Indeed, that tension is present whenever you search for the Raikes-Buffett emails online. They are often held up by aspiring entrepreneurs as brilliant examples of business acumen and strategic analysis, but what many of those people don’t realize is that the entire reason they are able to read those emails at all — most often in the form of pdf versions of a printed-out email chain — is because they are part of the public record, submitted as deposition and trial exhibits in a class action antitrust lawsuit brought against Microsoft in the early 2000s by consumers in multiple American states. This email exchange became a key part of the plaintiffs’ opening statement in that suit, which was settled not long afterward for more than a billion dollars.
All of which is to say, Go through the side door, please! Do everything within your power to find your way into the market where you are likely to have the most success. Just make sure when you get inside and set up shop, you avoid becoming what you fought so hard against in turning your dream of starting your own business into a reality.
###
Did you enjoy this post? Check out the rest of the book here.
Excerpted from How I Built This: The Unexpected Paths to Success from the World’s Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs by Guy Raz. Copyright 2020 by Guy Raz. Published and reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.
Awesome very informative I love learning Read More »
Who do you have in mind for Andrew to interview? Please note that interviewees must be a founder or co-founder.
jQuery(document).ready(function($){gformInitSpinner( 201, ‘https://mixergy.com/wp-content/plugins/gravityforms/images/spinner.gif’ );jQuery(‘#gform_ajax_frame_201’).on(‘load’,function(){var contents = jQuery(this).contents().find(‘*’).html();var is_postback = contents.indexOf(‘GF_AJAX_POSTBACK’) >= 0;if(!is_postback){return;}var form_content = jQuery(this).contents().find(‘#gform_wrapper_201’);var is_confirmation = jQuery(this).contents().find(‘#gform_confirmation_wrapper_201’).length > 0;var is_redirect = contents.indexOf(‘gformRedirect(){‘) >= 0;var is_form = form_content.length > 0 && ! is_redirect && ! is_confirmation;var mt = parseInt(jQuery(‘html’).css(‘margin-top’), 10) + parseInt(jQuery(‘body’).css(‘margin-top’), 10) + 100;if(is_form){jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_201’).html(form_content.html());if(form_content.hasClass(‘gform_validation_error’)){jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_201’).addClass(‘gform_validation_error’);} else {jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_201’).removeClass(‘gform_validation_error’);}setTimeout( function() { /* delay the scroll by 50 milliseconds to fix a bug in chrome */ jQuery(document).scrollTop(jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_201’).offset().top – mt); }, 50 );if(window[‘gformInitDatepicker’]) {gformInitDatepicker();}if(window[‘gformInitPriceFields’]) {gformInitPriceFields();}var current_page = jQuery(‘#gform_source_page_number_201’).val();gformInitSpinner( 201, ‘https://mixergy.com/wp-content/plugins/gravityforms/images/spinner.gif’ );jQuery(document).trigger(‘gform_page_loaded’, [201, current_page]);window[‘gf_submitting_201’] = false;}else if(!is_redirect){var confirmation_content = jQuery(this).contents().find(‘.GF_AJAX_POSTBACK’).html();if(!confirmation_content){confirmation_content = contents;}setTimeout(function(){jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_201’).replaceWith(confirmation_content);jQuery(document).scrollTop(jQuery(‘#gf_201’).offset().top – mt);jQuery(document).trigger(‘gform_confirmation_loaded’, [201]);window[‘gf_submitting_201’] = false;}, 50);}else{jQuery(‘#gform_201’).append(contents);if(window[‘gformRedirect’]) {gformRedirect();}}jQuery(document).trigger(‘gform_post_render’, [201, current_page]);} );} ); jQuery(document).bind(‘gform_post_render’, function(event, formId, currentPage){if(formId == 201) {gf_global[“number_formats”][201] = {“4”:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”5″:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”3″:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”27″:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”26″:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”28″:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”14″:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”18″:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”30″:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”29″:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”16″:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”17″:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”10″:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”8″:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”23″:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”21″:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”22″:{“price”:false,”value”:false},”25″:{“price”:false,”value”:false}};if(window[‘jQuery’]){if(!window[‘gf_form_conditional_logic’])window[‘gf_form_conditional_logic’] = new Array();window[‘gf_form_conditional_logic’][201] = { logic: { 27: {“field”:{“actionType”:”show”,”logicType”:”all”,”rules”:[{“fieldId”:”3″,”operator”:”is”,”value”:”I am volunteering myself as the founder”}]},”nextButton”:null,”section”:null},26: {“field”:{“actionType”:”show”,”logicType”:”all”,”rules”:[{“fieldId”:”27″,”operator”:”is”,”value”:”No”}]},”nextButton”:null,”section”:null},28: {“field”:{“actionType”:”show”,”logicType”:”all”,”rules”:[{“fieldId”:”3″,”operator”:”is”,”value”:”I am suggesting someone else who is a founder”}]},”nextButton”:null,”section”:null},14: {“field”:{“actionType”:”show”,”logicType”:”any”,”rules”:[{“fieldId”:”28″,”operator”:”is”,”value”:”Yes”}]},”nextButton”:null,”section”:null},18: {“field”:{“actionType”:”show”,”logicType”:”any”,”rules”:[{“fieldId”:”28″,”operator”:”is”,”value”:”Yes”}]},”nextButton”:null,”section”:null},30: {“field”:{“actionType”:”show”,”logicType”:”any”,”rules”:[{“fieldId”:”28″,”operator”:”is”,”value”:”No”}]},”nextButton”:null,”section”:null},29: {“field”:{“actionType”:”show”,”logicType”:”all”,”rules”:[{“fieldId”:”28″,”operator”:”is”,”value”:”No”}]},”nextButton”:null,”section”:null},16: {“field”:{“actionType”:”show”,”logicType”:”all”,”rules”:[{“fieldId”:”3″,”operator”:”is”,”value”:”I am suggesting someone else who is a founder”}]},”nextButton”:null,”section”:null},17: {“field”:{“actionType”:”show”,”logicType”:”all”,”rules”:[{“fieldId”:”3″,”operator”:”is”,”value”:”I am volunteering myself as the founder”}]},”nextButton”:null,”section”:null},10: {“field”:{“actionType”:”show”,”logicType”:”any”,”rules”:[{“fieldId”:”3″,”operator”:”is”,”value”:”I am volunteering myself as the founder”},{“fieldId”:”3″,”operator”:”is”,”value”:”I am suggesting someone else who is a founder”}]},”nextButton”:null,”section”:null},8: {“field”:{“actionType”:”show”,”logicType”:”any”,”rules”:[{“fieldId”:”3″,”operator”:”is”,”value”:”I am volunteering myself as the founder”},{“fieldId”:”3″,”operator”:”is”,”value”:”I am suggesting someone else who is a founder”}]},”nextButton”:null,”section”:null} }, dependents: { 27: [27],26: [26],28: [28],14: [14],18: [18],30: [30],29: [29],16: [16],17: [17],10: [10],8: [8] }, animation: 0, defaults: {“4”:{“4.3″:””,”4.6″:””},”14″:{“14.2″:””,”14.3″:””,”14.4″:””,”14.6″:””,”14.8″:””},”30″:{“30.2″:””,”30.3″:””,”30.4″:””,”30.6″:””,”30.8″:””},”21″:””}, fields: {“4″:[],”5″:[],”3″:[27,28,16,17,10,8],”27″:[26],”26″:[],”28″:[14,18,30,29],”14″:[],”18″:[],”30″:[],”29″:[],”16″:[],”17″:[],”10″:[],”8″:[],”23″:[],”21″:[],”22″:[],”25”:[]} }; if(!window[‘gf_number_format’])window[‘gf_number_format’] = ‘decimal_dot’;jQuery(document).ready(function(){gf_apply_rules(201, [27,26,28,14,18,30,29,16,17,10,8], true);jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_201’).show();jQuery(document).trigger(‘gform_post_conditional_logic’, [201, null, true]);} );} } } );jQuery(document).bind(‘gform_post_conditional_logic’, function(event, formId, fields, isInit){} ); jQuery(document).ready(function(){jQuery(document).trigger(‘gform_post_render’, [201, 1]) } );
The post Suggest a Guest based in South Africa appeared first on Mixergy.
I’ve blogged many times about the chasm.
That’s Geoffrey Moore’s term for the gap between the small part of the market populated with people who like to go first, and the larger group of people who want to get involved with something that’s proven, popular and effective.
The early adopters ask, “is it new?”
The early majority ask, “did it work?” and perhaps, “what’s everyone else doing?”
Longtime readers of this blog know that I do my work for early adopters. The smallest viable audience is sufficient to make an impact, and it allows me to focus on the people who are enrolled in the journey forward.
But if you delight the early adopters, they spread the word. That is how the chasm is crossed–not with fancy ads or clever hype, but because the people who are engaged do the generous work of telling the others.
We’re launching the first lessons of the tenth edition of The Marketing Seminar this week. With more than 10,000 alumni, it’s the most popular workshop on the Akimbo platform. And it works. That’s why the 8,000 people who took it after the initial launch decided to join in. Not everyone goes first. Almost no one does. That’s how our culture changes–when the few early adopters tell the others. And so each of us has to persist and continue to show up in the marketplace, doing the work and earning the trust of people who don’t get a thrill out of going first.
People don’t show up when you launch.
They show up when they’re ready.
Awesome very interesting I love making money Read More »
AppZen has announced the launch of Mastermind Analytics, its Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven audit solution. AppZen’s expense report auditing solution combines computer vision, deep learning, and natural language processing to automate expense report auditing and detect intentional and accidental compliance issues and fraud.
Mastermind Analytics provides a complete overview of individual transactions as well as paper trails to provide valuable insights without switching between systems. With it, finance teams can further decrease spending, reduce risk, and improve operational performance.
It’s on-demand charts, dashboards, and metrics provide all the bells and whistles finance professionals need to get valuable insights. It also offers the capability to identify offenders with the most ‘Missing Receipt Affidavit’ or analyze work-from-home expenses based on employee work arrangement status.
Tools: It offers easy and speedy process automation for checking every expense against Travel and Expense policies, Value Added Tax, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) regulations, IRS rules and regulatory requirements. The comprehensive auditing solution is made possible through its patented AI technology for businesses of all sizes.
Why is audit software important? Audit software solutions help slash the time it takes to do audits. They also help in providing a comprehensive data trail with a few clicks of a button. At the same time, it helps eliminate the need for paper records along with the labor and mistakes they produce. What financial teams take weeks to audit, an audit software can do in just a few hours.
Furthermore, an Audit management software helps you to capture evidence in real-time while working from paper trails can make compliance difficult to prove. A missing file could risk non-conformances or fail the audit completely.
Image: appzen.com
This article, “Mastermind Analytics from AppZen Provides Big and Small Picture on Spending” was first published on Small Business Trends
Amazing post very interesting Read More »
AppZen has announced the launch of Mastermind Analytics, its Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven audit solution. AppZen’s expense report auditing solution combines computer vision, deep learning, and natural language processing to automate expense report auditing and detect intentional and accidental compliance issues and fraud.
Mastermind Analytics provides a complete overview of individual transactions as well as paper trails to provide valuable insights without switching between systems. With it, finance teams can further decrease spending, reduce risk, and improve operational performance.
It’s on-demand charts, dashboards, and metrics provide all the bells and whistles finance professionals need to get valuable insights. It also offers the capability to identify offenders with the most ‘Missing Receipt Affidavit’ or analyze work-from-home expenses based on employee work arrangement status.
Tools: It offers easy and speedy process automation for checking every expense against Travel and Expense policies, Value Added Tax, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) regulations, IRS rules and regulatory requirements. The comprehensive auditing solution is made possible through its patented AI technology for businesses of all sizes.
Why is audit software important? Audit software solutions help slash the time it takes to do audits. They also help in providing a comprehensive data trail with a few clicks of a button. At the same time, it helps eliminate the need for paper records along with the labor and mistakes they produce. What financial teams take weeks to audit, an audit software can do in just a few hours.
Furthermore, an Audit management software helps you to capture evidence in real-time while working from paper trails can make compliance difficult to prove. A missing file could risk non-conformances or fail the audit completely.
Image: appzen.com
This article, “Mastermind Analytics from AppZen Provides Big and Small Picture on Spending” was first published on Small Business Trends
Amazing very interesting I love making money Read More »
Aneme Dlamini of Startup Grind chats to Simone Musgrave of Musgrave Gin about perseverance, building an actual business, and bringing your femininity as a force to be reckoned with in the business world.
Aneme = A, Simone = S
A: Welcome!
S: Thanks.
A: So, I am not going to go with the traditional ‘background story’ (laughs), I am sure you’ve been asked that many times.
S: I have, yeah (laughs).
A: Cool. So, to jump right in, you left the food industry after 13 years. Why after 13 years, why not before or after then? You mentioned in your SG talk that you actually started Musgrave as a side hustle…
S: Yeah, I was single mom with two small children and I needed that stability. So I stayed in the role. It was also a really good role in the business. I got to travel a lot, I was exposed to every brand within the business. So, the role was a great opportunity to further learn the industry. But towards the end of my time there, my kids had finished school, and I felt like I was not being challenged enough. So, I decided to leave. So long story short, the timing was right (laughs).
A: Awesome! Uhm, I wanted to also question you about your thoughts on expansion (in business). So, first you did Musgrave Original, then Musgrave Pink. Musgrave Pink exploded and was well-received. But my question is, as an entrepreneur, when did you know it was the right time to expand?
S: Yeah, so I always wanted to do a pink from the beginning. But I knew had to cut my teeth on a classic gin, and I launched the classic. But I needed more sales, so that meant I needed another product. My history being in product development and category management, taught me that. Also, from it, I knew that about a year, would do, for us to launch the next product. The timing, again, was important. People were starting to buy and love Musgrave, and they wanted something more from us. It’s never one factor, it’s a combination of factors. I also had the entrepreneurial surge of ‘f*ck it, I’m going to do this now.’ (laughs).
A: Okay, and how do you mix that sense of urgency and patience, like how do you balance the two for the sanity and sake of your business?
S: It comes down to discipline. What I have seen in the gin industry is that a lot of companies launch one gin, then another, and another, and another. That’s what innovators do, they launch products – the sexy part of the job. Having too many products does not make sense, for an early-stage business. The discipline lies in having a one or two product company and focusing on selling those products to the best of your ability. We haven’t launched a new gin since and we won’t. There is a fine balance between pushing your products and being disciplined enough to not want to do the sexy stuff all the time. It is all about reading the market and knowing whether it makes sense to innovate! ‘Cause often, just putting your energy into your current products will give you more sales and exposure than new products.
A: You’re quite fearless in the way you approach business and the way you have done things. Do you ever have days where you say, ‘Shit, I don’t feel like doing this today’? (laughs)
S: Yeah, the past few days actually! Being an entrepreneur is scary, you know.
A: Yeah
S: I have just had an employee leave me high and dry. No handover, nothing. Just dumped me in the shit. They were working the most important part of the business… So you’ve got to step up. I mean, who else is gonna do it? I am gonna do it! I now have her job, too. So yeah, there are days where I feel, ‘What the hell?’ There’s also the challenge of dealing with retail, when you’re a small player. It’s difficulty, quite a gritty arena to play in. Having said that, I don’t know if I get unmotivated, but I do get tired of the bullshit. And sometimes, that anger energizes me, other times, I just feel like running away (which I can’t) (laughs).
A: Yeah (laughs), that’s the thing about being an entrepreneur, right? You can’t just up and leave when you feel like it.
S: Yeah, I always say, my life looks sexy from the outside. The picture painted on social media is: I am travelling around the world, tasting different gins… but at the end of the day, I actually pick up boxes of gin and sell them. You can have the best product but if you don’t get on and sell them, it’s not a business.
A: So, talk more to that, right. The, what some would call, unsexy part of business, the actual selling of Musgrave Gin. What’s the daily grind?
S: The daily grind is getting listings (getting into the stores you want to be in), and once you’re in: managing that. So, most of my day is spent managing stock coming from the distillery into the warehouse, and out to the retailers – making sure that everything is on time! Big companies have big teams to help them do that. We are four, in the business.
Oh, and chasing distributors to actually do the selling. And finding answers to my questions like, ‘Why aren’t we listed here, I am paying you commission. Why aren’t we listed?’ So, it’s a chasing game, constantly. It all comes back to selling, that’s where I spend most of my time. The parties and the events are cool, but if you don’t sell, you can’t have an event. You have to be a good salesperson as an entrepreneur (laughs).
A: 100%! And talk more towards, what I call, the ‘fake entrepreneurship lifestyle’- entrepreneurs just doing it for the events, the glitz and glamour, the fame etc. What’s your opinion on it? I mean, you were self-funded from the beginning. Didn’t raise any funds etc. Not very typical. Versus startups that raise R 5 million bucks, but haven’t sold anything at all.
S: Hmm. Yeah, I don’t know if those businesses would survive. Also, someone else owns you. I believe in keeping the business 100% owned by myself. I think, if you see an entrepreneur being involved in the glitz and glam that may be just for show. A true entrepreneur does long hours of gritty work. The unsexy stuff – HR, recruitment, cash flow management, etc. So, the guys who you see raising R5 million won’t be around for long. I just don’t believe money comes easily, nor does quality business growth. I think, truly long-term successful people will have done everything from the ground level.
A: 100%! What are some of the characteristics that you define as ‘vital’, for an entrepreneur to succeed?
S: Grit! I really believe that they need to have grit. Grit and hard work. You have to be focused. You can’t let anyone tell you ‘no’. Whoever tells you ‘no’, just ignore them. And the ability to break the rules. You have to break rules every day. The rules are not made for entrepreneurs or innovative spaces. Just do it, and find out how, later.
I also believe an ethical or moral stance will keep you going in the long-term. The guys that say bad things about other brands, bad mouth others in the industry – aren’t going to work out in the long-term. You get caught out much quicker these days than in the old days.
If you can put all those things together, you can do anything you want with any product. And I look at the youngsters of today (you’re a youngster, no offence), and it is really hard to find those qualities. Young people don’t have as much grit. And in a time where you’re having to be an entrepreneur more than an employee, I really worry, sometimes.
A: What do you look for in employees, or in strategic partners?
S: Yeah, so for strategic alliances, we mainly look at whether or not the brand aligns with our brand and whether our customers align. We pay attention to how they speak to their customers, how they treat their customers, and all such things. From an employment point of view, I look for experience. We have a small team. And as a result, we need super-experienced people. I don’t really have the time right now, to grow people, in my business.
People management is the hardest part about running a business. The unsexist part, but it is going to be the future of business.
A: I have noticed that you’re very open, quite public with your vulnerability. Do you feel like that adds a certain authenticity to your business?
S: Hmm. It seems like people like to connect to human spirit. Things that they can relate to. Putting my surname on the bottle is me putting myself out there. Also, I was a single mom – I don’t like to talk about it that much, because nobody would ask a man in business if he was a single dad – I actually reject the question quite a lot. But it is my reality, and that is why I speak about it. I am who I am. I am on this journey, not to be famous, but to build a successful business and a legacy.
The ‘new consumer’ wants a story, they actually want to know the person behind the brand.
A: That’s quite deep.
S: Yeah.
A: How, if they have, have your daughters impacted the way you do business? Your values etc.?
S: Growing up in a single mom household (our cat is the only male in the house – laughs), they are quite strong and opinionated. They come with a force and a confidence, and I see them becoming powerful and vulnerable – in a balanced way. That inspires me to do as I do.
A: Staying on the parenting topic – as a parent you had to make sure your daughters were in school, everything was okay etc. How did you balance the discipline of ‘I really want to start this business vs. parental responsibilities’
Also, what is your advice for parents that want to start businesses but are worried, for example, that the first six months will be unpredictable and they still have kids in school etc.?
S: Yeah, so I started it my business while still working. So, I was still getting paid a salary. Just make sure that you are exposed to very little risk. For me, that worked. It will not always work. But I was at a point in my career where, they weren’t using me that much. So, I had a lot of free time. It’s about finding something that keeps you secure – even if it is your basic salary, and cutting your costs I wouldn’t suggest dumping it all and going straight into business.
It’s not about not taking a risk, it’s about taking a smart risk. I am not a conservative person in terms of risk, but I am conservative when it comes to making sure my home, daughters and other necessities are secure – then I do the risky stuff.
Also, a lot of people are in a rush. To become an overnight success. It’s okay to transition from a job into a business. I still don’t pay myself as much as I was earning at corporate.
A: What are some of the things that you have had to sacrifice?
S: I miss leave. Having time off with no responsibilities. That is what I miss the most. Going from four weeks of leave, to zero days at all, isn’t as cool. I don’t eat out as much etc., when I do, it is for Musgrave.
A: You had a baby food business that you said didn’t pan out too sexily. Did it knock your confidence as an entrepreneur?
S: Not at all. I am actually very thankful that it failed. I learned so much from that business and it actually launched me into the cool corporate position I spoke about earlier. Without that failure, I wouldn’t have been where I am today.
It was disappointing, yes. I felt like I had a good idea, and a good product. But you know, that’s part of the game. But I think, if you look at every successful entrepreneur, they have about 3-4 businesses that didn’t work out.
A: So, when did you know it was time to let go of that business?
S: Yeah, so you could see it, you know? I wasn’t making that much money, the sales were dropping. I was losing too much money on a monthly basis, to continue.
A: Do you feel like burnout is a frequent thing in your life?
S: Yeah, I do. I have burned out, almost twice, this year. As an entrepreneur, you hardly switch off. You can’t. It’s also part of your personality. A lot of entrepreneurs face the same problem. I think, part of dealing with burnout in a better way, is learning to see the signs. It’s not about taking four weeks of leave a year, it’s about that ‘in between’, are you taking care of yourself when you need to?
A: Do you feel like the Type-A/’never switch off’ personality ever disadvantages you? Do you ever feel like you dwell/overthink on certain things?
S: Yeah, I do think it disadvantages us. Not so much overthinking, but I just think that we don’t become as effective. It’s not only about work now, it then becomes ‘I must do yoga everyday’ or I must go for my run every evening. And you just become obsessive. And it actually helps nothing. It makes you less effective, less creative, and less of a leader. With an A-Type personality, you have to watch yourself.
A: Just to go back to the beginning for a bit, how did you survive those tough first weeks/months of your business?
S: Grit and determination. But also being surrounded by amazing friends. Friends that are supportive and loving can do a world of good! My friends are my go-to group about complaints or successes, anything really. It is important to find laughter within the chaos.
A: One key piece of emotional advice to entreps?
S: There is an obligation to be true. You don’t really want to paint a sexy picture and have people saying ‘Oh, I can’t achieve that’. Always paint an honest picture of the way things are. You never know who you are inspiring.
A: The age-old question, being a female in a male-dominated industry?
S: Yeah, it is quite difficult. I often find myself having to put on my ‘manly boots’ in order to have an equal conversation. I am conscious of keeping my femininity with me in meetings, but also not letting people step all over me. And that balance is quite exhausting, I must say. I come back from conferences emotionally tired, sometimes – because I am constantly putting on my ‘male’ side.
A: What’s the one message you’d love to give to female entrepreneurs?
S: Self-belief and lack of fear. You just have to say to yourself that you’re going to do it. There is no other way. There really isn’t. If you have a good concept, and you work really hard, you will be respected and doors will be opened.
And use your femininity. Use it, actually. I am not saying wear short dresses or anything of that manner, but use your intuition. Women have a lot more perceptive ability, emotional connection, and are not as competitive. These three things can really work to your advantage, use your femininity!
A: Thank you so much for your time, Simone. Super awesome to chat to you.
S: Thanks Aneme!
Check out Simone’s super inspiring talk, here:
