09Nov
Now that i have moved on from the REA Group, i am setting up a new business. In the process of doing this, we have decided that we will try our hardest to use new technologies to make the business run. The first decision we took was to get right of the old telephone system and to use skype alone.
The theory is simple. The business the we are setting up is global in focus and therefore we will need to be contacting people around the world on a regular basis. Everyone has a PC so this is not a problem and all we do is give each of them a head set and away we go. We are using Skype Business software that works like a dream. We now have 20 people working off it and there are no problems.
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06Nov
Yesterday i wrote some thoughts about the use of instant messenger in the work place and this stirred up strong debate, much of which is really around the trust we should place in our employees. Therefore following on from this i thought it would be good to explore just how much power we can gained from placing trust in people.
I have found that the more i trust people to get on with their jobs the better the work environment becomes and more importantly the more that gets done. Lets explore two extremes - first is a place with strong trust and the second is one without it.
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05Nov
The short answer is nothing! However i am hearing more and more about companies either banning or strong suggesting that employees dont use messenger and other similar applications. This got me to thinking - why?
For me, banning messenger is like banning the phone or email. I guess in days gone by bosses were banning email and the internet however imagine work life today without either of these.
The real issue is trust and understanding.
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31Oct
I was chatting with a few folk the other day about different styles that CEO’s have. Some wander around and chat, some roll up their sleeves and get deep into the hot issues, some just look at the numbers from their desk, while others cant help but micro manage.
This got me to thinking, can a CEO really manage a business from his / her desk or do they really need to get out amongst the people?
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29Oct
For much of the last 2 weeks i have been looking at business plans - lots of them. Each and every day i am approach by someone with a new idea. They are all wanting funding, all are claiming to have something special, and all truly believe they will be massive in a few short years.
The question for me is how do you find the real nuggets of gold amongst all the noise?
A couple of days ago i attended the Angel Connect conference in Hobart, Tasmania as one of the speakers. The conference looked at everything from what makes a good idea through to raising money, closing the deal and working with Angels and VCs.
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13Oct
Economic conditions aroun the world are tough. The question is now what is the likely impact on small businesses and more importantly those start ups that are reliant on funding to maintain their growth.
To answer this question, I came across a presentation from Sequoia Capita on startups and the economic downturn.
Here are the key messages:
- The recovery will be long - dont expect a quick turn around
- There are new realities - raising money on high speculative valuations is a thing of the past and series B and C funding will be very very tough
- Customer take up of businesses will be slower than projected
- Expense cuts are a must
- You have to become cash flow positive
The presentation then goes on to talk about specific actions businesses should take.
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11Oct
Over the last month i have been writing a series of articles on how the REA Group went global. To date these articles have covered organic entry to new markets, acquisition based entry into Europe, Asia and the Middle East, how we structured ourselves to lead a global business and how we used internal consultants. This article looks at once we acquired a new business, how we integrated that business into the REA Group.
Integration planning started long before an acquisition was completed. During the due diligence process, we would look at the business we were acquiring and then systematically work out what level of integraton we would need in the businesss and over what period of time would we need to execute the integration. Now when we thought about integration, we looked at the obvious things like finance, HR, systems and processes, products, marketing, and technology. We also looked at cultural integraton and how we can bring the acquired company into the Group as an equal member.
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Tags: Going Global
09Oct
You have to love the Nike slogan - it really does epitomise many things a business should do and often doesnt. How many times have you been frustrated by the speed of decision making within a business or the speed of response by a business to make something happen. Often decisions get bogged down in politics, lack of ownership, consensus building or just fear (of making a decision). I have often experienced this when dealing with external businesses (and sometimes internally too) where people seem to take forever to make what sometimes looks like a relatively easy decision.
I think that there is a different way to run a business and one the leads to faster decision making, more responsibility passed down through the ranks and the result is a place where people get on with it, take leadership for their actions and things happen!
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Tags: Decision Making
06Oct
The Australian Anthill Magazine has just released the winners and finalists of its Cool Company Awards for 2008. These awards cover a number of areas including innoation, global growth, online business and the x-factor award. The great news is that 3 of the companies i am involved in, redbubble.com, 3eep.com and artshub.com.au all did extremely well with redbubble winning both the best online business and x-factor awards.
So who are these companies and what is my involvement with them?
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06Oct
A reader has sent through the following question about raising money for NGO’s and charities. “I am involved in an organisation that is like an NGO, but the work we do is charitable, we give pro bono legal services to people on remand and who cannot afford bail, let alone a lawyer. We get lawyers to take up the jobs, but we need money to run the programme. How do i get people to see past the NGO tag and support us as they would a charity? People in this part view NGO’s as being hugely donor funded, but ours is a christian outfit that so far only gets support from one christian lawyers fraternity. How do we get other donors and members of the public interested in donating to our organisation?”
This question got me thinking. The reader does face an interesting problem and i think that approach to the problem is to think about it like a for profit business and to think about it in terms of what they would do if faced with a similar problem.
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