Case analysis- Strategic Management!

Innovation Fuel Podcast

Amir is back to discuss the million-dollar question of what makes a venture successful. He

talks about the importance of a leader and a team of good listeners and the need for a clear

vision and strategy that motivates their team to work towards them. He also discusses the

importance of featuring a USP (unique selling proposition) and the best time to launch a

product. Join us to learn from Amir on how to navigate towards your success.

Welcome, everyone to innovation few, a business podcast that connects our community here at

university Canada west to businesses all around the province of BC.

We bring your stories every two weeks they story by entrepreneurs, business owners and key

industry professionals.

I am Dave Kiran, an educator, visionary and entrepreneur

and I am glorify Hayden. I'm also an educator and entrepreneur,

and together with a host of innovation fuel. To learn more about me, my cohosts glory and our

podcast, please visit our website at www dot you can west.ca slash innovation fuel.

It's time Dave.

Yes, glory, it is time to ignite today's episode of innovation fuel. Welcome back a mirror. We're

so glad you can come back and join us at innovation fuel. And we're really curious today about

what makes a successful venture? And what makes an unsuccessful venture? Oh,

good. Question,

a million-dollar question.

A lot of things are important to make a successful venture founding team, the idea the product

market fit, the minimum capital, maybe they need the resilience and, you know, the

determination that they have in their mind to make that happen. These are the things that are

very, very important when we're talking about, you know, a successful venture. But sometimes

we need to have the spice of luck and having a chance to make that happen. So, and that's again,

important, but we cannot, you know, describe that how it works for a company, I mean, the

meaning of luck or chance. But it seems that if you have the, you know, persistence in doing

something it makes happen.

So let's, I want to let a bit open it up I want to see at first or I really white block in the because I

was reading several papers in the booth about the turning points. So which means you have a

great idea, you are very great persons, your enthusiasms, you put your effort, you mean you did

everything. But it's so you don't have a lock people can see you. Sometimes you lost in a lot of

noises of others. So no one can see you in the market. So you will lose your turning point. Yeah.

Is there any? Is there any kind of tools or way to find out, when is the best time to launch a

production to have a better luck?

Ah, actually, you know, we are living in a world of a lot of data. So under a lot of tools that you

can measure everything actually, on the web, you know, you have lots of tools, and I mean in

Google in every area that you can understand how is the market, what is happening everywhere.

So you can find, actually, the way that you can increase your chance is finding the best landing, I

mean, ground for your business. Let me explain about this because it's very important most of

the time I say this strategy landmark. You know, the first customer is that you're targeting are

very important in your business, because if you can find the best cases that they are good

promoters for your business, they will increase the chance and the lock in your business because

they can explain about you better than you because they will not in your fall in love in your

business or your product whatever. And they will talk about you everywhere that you are not at

that moment. So in this way, you will increase the chance of having better you know, exposure

and you will be promoted by the other people, not by your company or your media or whatever

that it's at that time maybe you do not have the power to you know broadcast Your potentials

because it means it needs a lot of money. So I think the best way to increase the chance is the

best way to find I mean, or define the best place to land, for your product or for your business. I

have this, you know, comment or idea or whatever, in my business. When I was in Digi Cola,

many years ago, as a board member, I saw that the best way that they made their company was

because they found the best landmark to position in it first. Lots of ventures like Digi cola at that

time, they were selling a lot of things. Maybe some of them are selling books, whatever. But did

you call at that time was just selling digital goods like mobile phones, printers, laptops,

whatever. So at that time, Dave, in my opinion, the reason that they had a lock to grow very fast

was because they found the best landmark to position themselves at that time. And lots of people

wasn't very in love with their product and service. Because it was it has very good differentiation

compared to their competitors.

So I'm going to want to just kind of take in a different story. I love where you're going with this.

And I want to ask a question around this, because we see the first offs out there. First off, say lol,

Google surpass them. First off, Friendster, and Facebook surpass them. When we see these

elements of the first to market. The first idea the first concept, we usually see the second out

overcoming the first element. And I'm thinking we're getting there with this land marking thing.

And I think maybe the land marking thing might be worth the successes. But tell me more about

what you think about battlement. Yeah, you know,

what I'm talking about the first thing, which is very important, we have heard that this code that

first master it and scale it, we have to master on something, which is the first thing that we think

that if we can make it happen, lots of people would come and use our service or product. And

then we can add more ideas or features to that there is a difference between creating a software

with a lot of features, compared to creating a business based on software with minimum features

at a good position of I mean, and a landmark to start growing from there, and then expand to the

other areas. For example, maybe in the first days of Google, the founders had the idea of

something like Gmail, but they didn't make it, they first started with the search. And after having

the good position at that, they started to make other ideas. So this is the way that you are, you

know, hacking the market with a very, very successful idea that a lot of people are using it not

just one time frequently. And then after having a very good stickiness, you can consider the other

ideas to add those ideas to your business. And then you can create a big enterprise. So finding the

idea, the landmark and combine them as a you know, a product is a very important thing, which

is actually we call the product market fit. You know, this is this is the, you know, simple

definition of product market fit.

Okay, so we talk about this part of the market. What about teams? Because several times talk

about it, not just a founder is a team of that one. So what do you mean a successful team? I know

that may be successful, it means a good team come with a bad idea. So you help them to change

their ideas, but I'm just talking about the team. What do you mean by is if you can see that all the

are a good team that we have to help them?

You know, it's very important when we are talking about team, it's not just about one person,

however, the leader or the founder or the main co-founder is very important, like other you

know, groups or other areas. But one of the thing that is very important is, you know, having the

transparency in the relationships with the team members. The best companies that I saw so far

was the companies that the founder, he has the you know, potential to find the best and if He saw

that someone is not working properly, it decided to replace with someone else. As long as you do

not have this, you know, anxious or you do not have this toughness, toughness, actually, yeah,

exactly, to replace the good people with the best people. And I don't mean the bad people, but the

good people, because we're talking about the best companies, you need to have this anxious, you

need to have this toughness you have, you need to have this mindset to find best people for your

company every day. And in this way, your team can see that they are working with the best

people. So they would love to work more and more and make the best of themselves in the

company. So in this way, you will have a team, which is making better in a very good evolution.

So we talking about cultural fit, we're talking about whether they buy into the idea and they

support the idea or they can get behind it?

Well, I think that's the challenge here is that we are in the startup stage, we don't have that much

money to invest on the talents or find the best talents. But I think that it's the leader will come

here. Yeah, to try to encourage people with the few money less money come and work in this

idea, I think, or they promise something, financial benefits later, I don't know. You know, it's,

you know, it's

If you're thinking about creating a venture, especially in the startup cases, focus on your growth

engine. This is the most important thing as long as you do not have that. In your business, you

will burn a lot of money and maybe you will increase you know the failure rate in your business.

So I suggest to focus on your product finding the most important in your product and focus on it,

and spend your budget and the fund on empowering that value. And make it an increase the

stickiness and the frequency of using that product more and more. In this way, you will have

something that will work without your you know, attention. I mean, I mean without your having

your eyes on it. You know when you are sleeping, it is working. When you're walking, it is

working. When you are playing soccer, it is working. When you're watching TV, it is working.

And it doesn't mean that you have to all the time at your job and take care of it. Because the

business is you know, it has the potential of groups like a baby is growing. You just need to fit

him.

I love the analogy. I love the stickiness thing. I think they our audience can take away with the

stickiness element. We're going to make it stick. No, this has been great, Amir, thank you very

much for our conversation today. Yeah, it was my pleasure. Thank

you so much.

Thank you for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you.

To all our business owners out there. We have a fleet of enthusiastic and knowledgeable students

here at UC w that can help you with your business through a capstone project and internship

program. whatever we can do to support you, we're here to help. And if you have a great story

like a mirror here that you'd like to you think our students or our listeners can benefit from,

please reach out to us at www dot you can west.ca slash innovation fuel.

I'm your How can our listeners contact you and reach out?

They can find me on the LinkedIn. Actually, I have my own profile there. And also they can

send me if they if they would like to send me by email me at 787 as number that we see.

Perfect. Thank you, Dave. Thank you. I'm here. I hope you all enjoyed the story as much as we

did. Tune in for our next episode.

You know, most of the time I say to the founders that, instead of making a lot of features for

your product, find the value factor for a product. Because if you create a lot of features for your

product, no one knows which one is the most important one. And in this way, they cannot, you

know, you will decrease the engagement or a stickiness because they don't use it very well. And

the best way is finding the first and the most important idea or I mean vow factor whatever, in

the first day of the product, and then gradually add the other ideas or features to the product. So

the best way to create a better product is finding that strategy landmark, that idea that the you

know that vowel factor at the first day. So, if something when and this is the way that we call it

product market fit, because if you know the best value factor, or the ideal feature in your product,

which is the best one for the people who are interested to use your product, you can connect this

product with the community with the people, and they can see the value as they see the value,

they can interact with your product frequently. And you can you can see the frequency of using

and then you can focus on increasing the frequency. For example, if they are using weekly, you

can make it daily, if you are using it daily, you can make it per hour or in the morning at noon,

night evening, everyone. So this is the way that you can increase the engagement and the

stickiness. And then after having this stickiness, you can add the other ideas, because when

someone comes and use your product, frequently, they can see the changes, they can see the

product is growing, you know, and they will engage with your product more and more. So they

will do as an ambassador, to promote your product to other people, family, friends, I know I

know, in Twitter, everywhere. So in this way, you will see that the new people are coming. And

using your service without your you know, efforts without doing something just based on you

know, word of mouth or whatever. So in this way you will grow. And the business and this is the

way that we say sometimes that this is the flywheel actually, because in this way, you know

where to focus and do it more and more and more. And see the business is growing without

doing advertising maybe or doing something else.

So it's the element of I'd like to call it is Crossing the Chasm, going from that early adopters to

that early majority that says hey, you know, it's that element of get that focus element, get it clear

within those elements and then scale up from there. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Amir, this has been

great, my friend, this is a great information. I think our listeners are definitely, you know, are

going to eat up. Now. I will always have to ask this at the end of our conversations. Is there any

last bit of wisdom or any piece that we didn't ask you today that you'd like to share with our

listeners? It could be exhaustive, but

or, for example, what is your advice? Yeah, people have their business idea how they can

prepare themselves for you.

So and now, this leads me down the conversation, because I always like to have this conversation

with entrepreneurs is that because we we've been ingrained years ago with going in alone, and

trying to do it, trying to prove it. And now we've seen this change over the last five to 10 years of

this collaboration and partnership and co-founder in order to get to scale up quickly getting the

right people in place, and moving that forward, what's your opinion of me or what's your what's

your position on

this? You know, again, one person which is the founder of the company is very important,

because we couldn't have many leaders in a company, we have to have just one leader, but we

need to have good followers, we need to have good co-founders, good people that can listen and

work and discuss gently, not, you know, a way that they would love to show that I would love to

do this in my way. And I don't care about the other people it doesn't the way that you can make a

business or do and you know, be as a board person in a company. So, you need to understand

that in a company, we have to have someone who is a good leader and the other co-founders are

people and other people who are good listeners and good workers, who can follow the vision and

the mission of the company and they would love to create that dream in a perfect way. So, as

long as they have this ambitious, they can make it happen. Because they know that what they are

exactly doing and why they are listening to this founder and why they are doing those things that

way. So, it actually this is the meaning of a team like a football team, soccer team, you know, a

very clear vision or a goal for a team for example, in a football you know, the rules, the time of

the play, and a clear goal, which is you have to win in the meaning of when which is you know,

putting the ball I mean this is a way that you have to make it again in your business. So, the best

way the founders are doing are clearing this vision describing the strategy talking more and more

about what they are doing this why we are doing this, how we are doing this. And this, this is the

way that when you are in discussion with people and talking more and more about the way that

you are doing that. So people would love your mindset, your idea, your vision, and they will

follow you without any push without any you know, incentives which is just money. A they want

to make it happen. They are the part of the journey. Not the you know person who is watching

your journey. It would love to be in the pool. Yeah.

It's so beautiful. I think that's it's not just for founders for everyone, everyone who wants to lead

even the department. You need to have that kind of this kind of characteristics. One more things

about being successful. We look at the founders, we look at the team, we look at time, you know,

strategy, what about product, I have an idea, for example, what I do want to create a product, this

product can be anything serious goods, or any things that can be how I mean, when I'm designing

a product, what I have to look at it to make it successful, is one element is a product, right?

in a startup, when we are talking about startup, we are not talking about making money, we are

talking about creating a venture, and then the result of having that venture, it means we will have

or we can make money. So if someone is looking for money, I think they, they have to go work

for enterprises, because they will give them more money. But if they have the wish, or the you

know, the feeling of creating someone, which is another enterprise that they can work for them

now, but not now, in the future, it can come and start do that business. For example, if I would

love to work and get them, you know, wages like Facebook, okay, I have to go work for

Facebook. But if I have the anxious, and you know, the hope of creating another Facebook, this

is another thing that I have to come and start doing that. In that case, you're not talking about

wages, maybe you're talking about your shares. And this is the way that you can encourage those

people in the best way that they can see that they have the skin of the game in that game. So they

can make the best of themselves.

So he's kind of like you're looking for a partner, not

exactly, you're not looking for hiring someone you're looking for creating a relationship as a

partnership somehow. So this is very important, especially for the first days after getting a fun

making money, or enough money to pay the people on your payroll or whatever, so you can hire

those people. However, at that time, again, for your, you know, stars, you need to convince them

or give them a minimum incentive based on the value of the company because they are not

working for you. They are they are creating a lot of value for you. And you have to share that

value with them. And give them this incentive to to increase that value more and more.

I love when you say value. I love that element of value. Because I think what I'm understanding

here, Marian correct me if I'm wrong is that the right individual that that that needs to be part of

this organization or part of this woman needs to be motivated more than money needs to be

motivated to create to want to be a part of something to be to fully buy into it. Yeah, exactly.

You know, my question is around that a person has an idea. It's has how I can encourage others

to be my partner. The way I have to show the value of my idea, right? Because I'm going to

create that brand. Now I think that it's the part of my personality is no Do you think that

everyone can be a good founder that attract talents? Or based on your experience? What do you

see?

Actually, number wise, you can see and your answer is no. Because there are a lot of companies

that they tried but They couldn't make it. And the reason was because of their founders, because

they didn't have the potential of, you know, absorbing top talents, their own companies, however,

they had good ideas. So, the reason that we say that the team and the founder is more important

compared to the idea, or something like that, I mean, the market is because if you are a good

founder, you can do something that the others couldn't. So, in my opinion, the founder, who has

the commitment to create a business, that people would love to work with him, or her, because

they think that he or she loves to make it happen. And they can see this ambitious, in her or his

eyes, in the way of his life, her life. So they would love to work with him. And her. So this there

is a there is this is very important that if you are working with someone, and you can see those

things in his or her mindset or way of life, you will follow them. And this is the way that

someone would love to work with someone else as a founder, either as a co-founder, actually to

work with the founder.