I went to a course last night at the Business Center in Wellington (if you live in Wellington and have a small business, join their email newsletter, they have tonnes of free courses for all areas of running and growing a business, by people who have done it).

One question we were asked is ‘how much money do you want to get out of your business?’

It’s funny, I’ve never thought of a dollar figure before, it was always ‘whatever it can give me’. Now that seems like a terribly stupid answer… Because once you’ve established a dollar amount, you can work back through your expenses to come up with a figure you have to charge for your product or service to GET that dollar figure.

You will find out if you’re bonkers and there is no way that will happen with your business, you will discover that you may need to increase your prices or cut costs.

So simple. I love it.

Getting your message across quickly and clearly is something everyone who wants to go somewhere has to master, and getting your story and presentation pulled down to a few minutes is a valuable way of helping you simplify what the problem is you’re trying to solve, why other approaches aren’t working and how you do it in a way that does.

Refining your Pitch
I’m over here in the US right now taking PlanHQ around the market and in the last few weeks aside from pitching to around 10-25 people a day, have done 5 video interviews including:

• interview on lunchmeet
• another at techcrunch, then finally last week
• presented our 6 minute pitch with a live product Demo on stage in front of 700+ people including press and investors.
• By this point we were in pretty good form, so straight after that a TV show from Canada came and did an interview (doesn’t air until October 15), people like good clear stories if you tell yours well, more people will want to pass it on.

I think the whole team thinks we’ve done pretty well, the secret is to keep doing it, as often as possible, tweaking it, watching peoples re-actions, simplifying what you do, say and show, until people love it. See what you think of some of the videos above and how we progressed, and get working on your pitch.

I went to Victoria university. Their website was a well known example among students of a black hole of information – you knew it was all in there somewhere, it was just virtually impossible to get to it. It was begging for an update, so I was happy to discover that very recently it had undergone a re-design.

The new site looks nice, but I feel like the point of the redesign was missed a little. It’s not actually much easier to find stuff. I realised quickly that I had ‘learned’ the old site – I knew where that random link to the graduation information was off by heart so had taught myself how to get to it. The new site, I had no idea.

Looking quickly through the site to try to understand who and what they were catering for, I started jotting a quick list of what I think are the building blocks of a successful website. It is by no means complete, but based on the things I think the new VUW site does well and not so well.

• Use menus to break the areas of your website up into large chunks. People use navigation only when necessary so keep your main menu small (only a few links) and prominent. I can then quickly get to the broad area I need to.
• If you have a big site (with more than 2-3 layers of content), have a search box. I can avoid a long path to my goal page, if I can quickly search for it.
• Too much small text in small chunks is confusing, especially when it looks the same – I ignore it. Maybe I assume they are ads? Clearly separate different content and give it some space and size!
• I think 4 columns may be a bit much. It’s too busy and hard to separate the content out, so makes me head back to the menus. Keep it simple, 2-3 columns maximum and keep the main content area a lot larger than the ‘module’ bars so I know where I’m meant to be getting my information from.
• Completely understand the REASON why someone is there. What are the things most people are trying to get to? Make sure it is as easy as possible to people to achieve their most common tasks. All information was not created equal. Do visitor requirements change over time? (i.e with a graduation ceremony coming up, make graduation prominent, at other times, leave it more ‘hidden’

I recently went out to dinner with my parents to a restaurant that we quite like. Unfortunately, just as we polished off the last bit, I found a slug in my dinner.

Luckily it was a whole slug. In fact it was a happy slug. Quite cute too, had it not been in my dinner.

I got that weird, squirmy feeling about what exactly I had just eaten. Then the waiter came past and was shown the slug. He said ‘oh dear… Umm, would you like me to take it away?’ and kind of wiped it off my plate with a towel.

I think we looked a little shocked because he then offered a free dessert. Funnily enough, I wasn’t too interested, so got my dinner for free.

I’d give him about a B- for his dealings with me.

When we went to pay, the owner/manager happened to be standing there. He wondered why we were getting a free meal. When he was told, his face went a little pale and he ordered everyone into the kitchen to look at the salad. He wasn’t thinking ‘oh dear a slug’ he was thinking ‘potentially these people could do significant damage to my restaurant’. I mean, imagine if I’d been a restaurant reviewer?

It made me think… Shouldn’t every one working in a restaurant be equally concerned about slugs?

I’m not sure if ours is, but I’d like it to be.

Small business should be the home of sustainability. We know how to live off a shoestring, to use our resources until they are well and truly done for. We like to save money, we like to achieve things, our livelihood depends on us standing out.

Simple measures we can take

I’ve been thinking about it a bit recently and talking to others about potential small solutions that make a big difference. We aren’t necessarily doing all these things, but I think we should make it our 6 month aim to be. I’m also very interested in hearing what other small businesses are doing and how they can save money doing it.

Live close to work

If you have less than 10 people, you should all try to live within walking or biking distance, or at the very least, use public transport. Why hire people who live far away? Build your daily exercise into getting to work – My sister often walks an hour to get home to the suburbs and arrives refreshed and relaxed.

Try to cut paper waste

We send out our invoices via email. We’ve had one or two customers complain and politely tell them that they can print them at their end if needed, we can’t justify the waste… And it saves us tonnes of money!

We also ask customers to set up direct bank transfers instead of sending cheques. We don’t have a 100% hit rate, but the time and hassle it saves when cheques aren’t sent is enormous! I use the envelopes we get as srap paper for all the notes we jot down throughout the day.

We store copies of all our valuable information online instead of in printed version. If you do print stuff, print on both sides!

Recycle

It is a shame that for some reason in the last two offices we’ve had, there has been no recycling. We do put recyclables aside and Tim sometimes takes them home, but if the cleaners get in first, I suspect it all goes in the bin. One aim for the next 6 months is to sort the recycling situation in our office.

Every time you get rid of a computer or a cellphone or any electrical junk, THINK before you bin it. There are recycle stations, companies like Vodafone do have drop off days. if it’s not broken, someone else might want it… Take it to the Salvation Army or charity store.

Turn off your computers and lights at night

Once again, we’re guilty… some stay on, for no reason at all. We live in a world so full of waste that we forget it’s actually no burden to flick the switch when you leave the office.

Avoid Taxis

If you work in a city like Wellington, there is virtually no need for taxis. Bus lanes enable busses to get there just as fast or faster, and walking in the middle of the day gives you the chance to get some fresh air. There is no reason why you can’t plan to finish meetings and events with 15 minutes to spare before the next one.

Or why not get a company bike? Slap on your logo and make it the first point of call for transport. I’ve heard of a company that did this recently and replaced an entire company car with a bike. Needless to say, they are gleeful about the extra money in their pocket.

Support a charity

While organisations like Greenpeace wont accept corporate sponsorship, you can do it individually. Surrounding yourself with information about what people ARE DOING, keeps you inspired to do something yourself.

It may not be world changing… But it’s a start

I know these sound small. It’s the same argument with plastic bags – why bother cutting yours if the rest of the world don’t? Because your usage however insignificant compared to the billion other people on the plant, IS SIGNIFICANT compared to what it could be.

It’s not going to be long before we actually have no choice in the matter, so why not get prepared now? It’s always better to be a leader, not a follower.

Today’s lecture is now complete. :)

After 5 months in Development, the last 3 of which we’ve had a couple of hundred people on our beta, I’m really happy to say that we’ve launched our online business planning software PlanHQ.

The Problem PlanHQ is solving

Business Plans have become known as static wordy documents that get out of date quickly and don’t get achieved. 

Bring Your Plans to Life 

PlanHQ is all about bringing your business plan to life. We make planning a collaborative ongoing process, something that you keep tweaking, updating and logging your actual performance against as the journey of your business growth evolves.

Grow your business 

If you’re serious about growing your business, then PlanHQ will become a must have. PlanHQ helps you set your direction and move towards making it happen, one day at a time.

What do you think?

Geting a lot of feedback and thoughts from people on PlanHQ right now and turning this straight back into the product, very interested in hearing any thoughts, if you’ve got anything to say about it, hit me up @ tim at planhq.com

There’s a lot of talkers in the world, but what separates those with a voice from those who just make noise, is doing – making things happen!

A $700 million company in 7 years

After reading a blog post by friend Rowan Simpson (Development Manager and ex-shareholder of New Zealand’s auction / marketplace site Trademe) who was looking back upon a time when he was out round the country pushing his business flathunt.co.nz, he reminded me that it was 1 year ago today that Trademe was sold to fairfax for $NZ700 million. (Valued at just 15 times earnings for a business now firmly planted at the centre of New Zealands domestic trading, it’s quite the deal for Fairfax). Rowan said it has been a week of reminiscing, must be some cool times to look back on, good on you guys!

An overnight success? – Well 7 years is one very long night 

It blew most people away in New Zealand, which is understandable, we don’t see many businesses and deals of this size, let alone those born from small groups of individuals (where the real action happens), but on the other hand, what it showed is that most people just don’t get whats happening here, with the individuals who really have remarkable vision and action at play here. The fact is some people are working away all the time, everyday, making things happen. They follow their ideas, think about and build valuable businesses and eventually, with enough persistence, the right direction, focus, and good people, naturally, not at all surprisingly, these people pull off extraordinary and big things. Businesses like Trademe don’t just happen, people make them happen, and it took them… well as long as it took!

Do Before you think

I remember reading from a distance the articles when the sale went through hoping to catch a glimpse of the words from the horses mouth. As a doer, a creator, a risk taker who’s continued to put every $ and hour on the line to make something happen ages, I wanted to hear a few sneaky words from the horses mouth. Here’s a few words I remember coming through the paper from Sam Morgan, Founder and Major shareholder of Trademe:

Sam Morgan on Making Decisions and Doing

"Some people are better decision-makers than others,"

"Some people spend a lot of time sitting around talking about things they’re going to do and others get out and do them. I think there are plenty of people like that."

"Some people spend a lot of time sitting around talking about things they’re going to do and others get out and do them. I think there are plenty of people like that."

When Asked: "So that’s the trick? To do rather than think?

"Yeah, I think so. Everyone says a lot of people will no doubt think, ‘oh, I wish I had that idea’ but what they should think about is ‘what ideas do I have?’ And get off your bum and go and do it."
source: NZ Herald

Doing is the best part of Thinking 

That’s not saying there wasn’t plenty of very insightful thinking behind the move to make Trademe, but I guess the message I got from this, and something I really believe in is;

Your best thinking is embedded in your next actions, so you may as well just do, and face whatever consequences meet you on the other side.

I love starting the day well, and this week me and a few friends have taken to morning swims down at our central city beach Oriental Bay. Nat and me lived up at Ohope Beach for a year or so building the business and working the lifestyle in parallel until last may, and getting up and running over the lawn to the ocean became a simple daily pleasure that really brings you life!

Taken this lovely morning : )

Start the day with a swim!!!

If you’ve got a body of water near-by, and its not completely freezing, then get in and have a paddle, and if you’re living in Wellington, then come down and join us! we hit Oriental Bay at 7:30am (umm.. 7:40 actually) for a morning swim followed by a freshly squeezed juice and a quick yarn down the road, guaranteed to feel even better about the world and kick start your day inspired!

Keep your head up, and don’t be afraid to think big just because you’re small, there are real people selling there businesses for real reasons, the opportunity may be just right for you!

When you hear the word acquisition, you may like many think; big deals for big companies, and  alot of the time I guess it is, but we’ve just today completed our first purchasing web design business Good Use, to extend our web design business Decisive Flow, and it feels like a really great move. I’ve put a few points that guided the decision and may help you consider acquisition an option for growing your small business.

1. Have a reason to Acquire
2. Get into Acquisition thinking
3. Understand what you’re buying
4. Valuation & Funding
5. Make Everybody Happy
6. Make it Complimentary
7. Acquire with a Partner
8. Finding Acquisitions

1. Have a reason to acquire

Simply to grow is enough, this is the primary reason for acquiring, but for us we have some other pretty compelling reasons to acquire. We’re not far away from launching a new business we’ve been quietly pulling together over the last couple of months, a web based business planning tool PlanHQ. As a result both Natalie and my time is largely committed to this, so we needed a strategy for keeping the web design business, Decisive Flow, moving ahead still at full pace. Now at this point you might be wondering why with less time available for Decisive Flow we decided to grow it by buying another web design company? (Well, we may actually just be mad, but heres the rationale).

razón de adquirir (some 1am spanish)

Nat and me both really want to see Decisive Flow continue strong while we’re pushing PlanHQ, Its our little baby and it’s a good business so we want to see it keep growing. Also our time has fast been compressing with PlanHQ moving along at lightening pace, so it was time to dream up some smart way of growing the business with less of our ongoing time.

2. Getting into Acquisition thinking 

As I pondered options, at the same time I concluded a deal with one of our new business partners and angel investor in PlanHQ, consequently I felt mentally free of capital constraints and back into where I’m at my best, big thinking/moving mode. What we needed was to build a bigger business that can afford to support more good people, the only way to build the business in the time we’ve had/got, is to merge or acquire, the seed was planted.

Opportunities & experiences passed

On a capital raising trip in the US several years ago, I remember meeting a company in Florida who’s parent company was facing litigation, so the subsidiary was up for sale. At the time we had very little cash, and were looking or capital ourselves, it seemed crazy to think we’d be looking at an acquisition, but from a different angle we suddenly had a US market position immediately, which stengthened our investment/capital raisng proposition, so it became very achieveable. Unfortunately at the time the Board of the business I was representing didn’t see the world the same way so we had to stop talks. 12 month later the comapny had outstanding results, the parent comapny (NASDAQ listed) bounced back and the stock price had shifted from 22c at time of the possible acquisition to just over $2. Moral of the story, don’t be constrained by your percieved smaller position.

3. Understand what you’re buying: Domain Expertise

I’d never say there aren’t opportunities to buy buisnesses outside of your domain, there really can be remarkable deals everywhere, and at the right price, you may even just be a short term staging point while you find more buyers, broker a better deal, and make the gain in the resell. I’m no expert in this, I’m not an investment banker nor habitual investor, I focus on creating things and making money in the process, so I’ll talk about acquisitions where they help you grow or get into business you understand. In many cases, when it comes to an acquisition, there will be domain experts on the buy side, businesses already invested in the space who will know how to best leverage a business for sale, so they’re likely to provide the seller with a better valuation, plus they’ll have confidence to run it successfully. You’re best to be in this boat, buy something you know.

4. Make Everybody Happy 

A good acquisition is all about making everyone happy; 1.) the buyer, 2.) the seller and importantly 3.) the sellers/your new customers. In our case the Good Use Principal, James Westlake, is going to be travelling for some time and wants  to know the relationships he’s built up will be looked after in the same way as they have been if not better, and that he’s got a fair price for the business. We want to take on new customers who are already atuned to our approach, which is similar to that of Good Use, so we can serve customers well, you can never really buy customers, as they’ll make there own choice, you can only earn and retain customers, and the best way to do that is to be the right fit for each other.

5. Valuation & Funding

This naturally is a very important part of the above, making everybody happy, everyone needs to feel good about the valuation. Theres no hard and fast rules on valuation, it depends hugely on the specific circumstances, ideally as I’ve said, you want to be acquiring in your domain of expertise, so you’ll have a good idea of how much revenue you can get from the business and what control you have over lowering costs/increasing profitability. In our case, we’re small and pushing multiple ventures so spread thin on capital, and therefore can’t afford to carry much of a cash risk.

Return on investment & Staying cashflow positive

We’re financing the acquisition through debt/bank loan, so it’s crucial that the investment is cashflow positive from day 1, so that the debt can be serviced and paid off in a reasonable timeframe (In this case two years). So we did the valuation based on 1.) the base cashflow of the business (in this case monthly web hosting revenue), and 2.) Discounted sales forecast (very conservative additional sales to existing customers, as they all still require work to close.)

6. Make it Complimentary and Strategic

We know what our core competencies are: we’re experts in usability, web marketing, and business growth, so everything we do is centred around this. Our move into PlanHQ draws on these capabilities and is complimentary to Decisive Flow. We know that while our focus is on PlanHQ, we’ll be able to provide higher quality input into Decisive Flow, in a shorter time, so long as we have good people in it and partnerships around it. (And yes we’re putting people in it right now, so if you work with us don’t expect any slow down! : ) Strategically, it also enables us to build up talent inside Decisive Flow, and then potentially bring them accross to PlanHQ to assist, and vice versa.

7. Acquire with a partner

This may not always suit your circumstances, but an acquisition is an opportunity to build a commercial partnership with a company you want to work with closely, an existing or potential partner. The thing I’ve learnt abaout business partnershps over the years is, you’ve got to make money together in order to have the time and space to build the relationship and a joint strategy. We jointly acquired Good Use with brilliant opensource content management and web development company Silver Stripe, and this is a great way of widening the breadth of capabilities of our businesses, spreading the risk of the investment and growing each others businesses together.

8. Finding Acquisition Opportunities

My main advice on this answer to this relates to  another post I’ve done on growing a business you love, specifically the section on Talk to EVERYONE about your ideas!

There may be places where you can look to find an acquisition opportunity, businesses for sale… but more often than not, these opportunities are not promoted openly, they are instead circulated through networks, so you’ve got to build them and work them, good networks will yield!

How we found the Good Use Opportunity

I came accross the opportunity to buy Good Use in a conversation with someone I’d just met at lunch on a friday before heading away for a weekend at a family beach house in the lovely Ohope Beach where nat and me lived for a year or so. He was interested in my businesses and particularly experiences as an entrpreneur, so like everyone I ran him through what we’re up to, how I got here, what I’m seeing out there and what he could do to get himself out there. He then mentioned he’d looked at possibly buying a web design company, but had little idea how to assess it, I asked which one it was, and it was Good Use, a company very like ourselves, perfect! so after returning from Ohope surfed out with a tan and a smile, I contacted Good Use and we met immediately.

9. The Transition

Now we’re completing the transition phase, and starting to deal with the new enhanced workload, having left a rather large flow of work in the wake, I’ll leave it to Nat to say whether she’s happy about that’s going : ), but we’ll have someone coming on board very shortly. Any more is probably too much for this post, If there’s enough interest I’ll write more on Acquisitions and keep the story rolling.

A week or so ago, I wrote about the effectiveness of your business cards, and Matt from Polon was nice enough to inform me about Moo.

Moo is awesome. Moo makes business cards exciting and different. Moo is also mastering the art of word of mouth marketing by offering various promotions in conjunction with various very cool and talk-friendly companies (ie. 10,000 FREE sets of 10 Flickr mini cards, or 10,000 FREE sets of 10 Skype mini cards)

Redefining Business Cards 

The concept of the mini card is interesting for business owners, gone are the days where a business card was really kept. These days, they are simply the way of transporting your contact information from you to someones elses phone/contact database or other contact storage device, and once this task is complete, they are trashed.

Moo makes this process more fun – each card is different and very nice to look at, they are more convenient and earth friendly (being smaller) and they have managed to single handedly refresh the way I look at business cards. Excellent work :)

Keep and Eye Out 

Not entirely convinced by my gushy blog post? Keep an eye on their blog for the next freebie and send away to see for yourself (I seem to be a bit slow off the mark these days and am yet to be one of the top 10,000)