Ed Kaim Entrepreneur Tip #1
From time to time I'll be posting entrepreneurial tips from things I've learned in my past business experience, as well as things I learn along the way in my new adventure. To be honest, most of these aren't going to be serious tips, so take extra special care to not confuse them with useful advice from people like Eric Sink. To make things interesting, I'll let you try to figure out what's useful and what isn't :-)
There are three main things you want to handle very early on in developing a new business.
First, it's critical that you draft a business plan, even if you're the only person in the company. A business plan isn't always something you execute against line-by-line, but it will serve as a great forcing function to guide you through your thinking process when trying to figure out what to build/offer, as well as how customers will learn about it, buy it, get it, and use it.
Second, make sure you take advantage of all the small business-focused services out there. Although it might seem annoying to pay for little services here and there, many of them add great value. Having a cell phone that you can check email from is a great investment if it will give you a few minutes of relaxation while traveling. Also be sure to check out industry-specific offers because they may be incredibly compelling. My current favorite offer is Microsoft's ISV Empower program, which is a virtually pornographic display of software love.
Third, figure out what your phone number spells. There are hundreds of reasons you'll want to do this, so just take my word for it.
Let's try that third one in practice. For example, let's take my new company, SharpLogic Software (http://www.sharplogic.com). SharpLogic has received the phone number (877)878-3909 at random. At first look, it's a pretty nice number. Lots of round 8s--always a bonus. However, the trained entrepreneur will quickly identify the fatal flaw--that dreaded 0, which doesn't correlate with any letters on the typical handset. Considering how important this exercise is, we'll cheat here and use the letter "o" in place of an officially sanctioned letter. While there is some potential risk, these cases generally hold up in court when you cite the precedent of "The People of Delaware vs 1-800-MATTRES", in which the judge decided that it was appropriate, in some cases, to leave the last "S" off for savings.
Still with me? Fantastic.
The goal of this exercise is to see how well we can customize a new business phone number to various audience segments. At first, SharpLogic Software will be focusing squarely on the software and technical services market. Since some of this business may be from overseas, a localized corporate tagline may be "For American Super Software #1, Call 1(877)TRUE-WOW!". However, as the company matures, there will likely be a need to address specific audience segments, such as verticals. One idea SharpLogic is tossing around is to develop a product to heal sick pack animals. Upon launch, it may be worthwhile to adjust the tagline to "For all your farmyard healthcare needs, call 1(877)U-PUFY-OX". With any luck, SharpLogic will get aquired by a larger, more comprehensive animal services company. Our latest project would be for cosmetic surgery, which will be hotly debated. As it stands, the proposal would be to adopt the tagline, "You don't have to live with ugly animals anymore. Call 1-UR-PURTEY-OX for more information".
Well, that's about all the value I can add today. Let me know if you have better phone numbers or better phrases for mine.