Dear reader
I was at E-Commerce Expo this week and went to a session by Renaud Visage, CTO of leading event and ticketing platform EventBrite. He spoke about his '10 learning principles' for start-ups, but they're also very relevant to any business that wants to achieve scale.
I thought they were excellent and wanted to share them with you:-
- Focus on big problems: find something totally broken or which doesn't work as well as it should. The bigger the problem, the higher the chance of success.
- Be 'scrappy' - be resourceful & thoughtful about your use of resources.
- Try to automate as much as possible.
- Keep things simple. We live in the era of everything being a tap away. Try to put yourself in the shoes of your users and offer the simplest way for your users to do things.
- Pay attention to the story you tell yourself, your customers, your investors and your employees about your business. Think about what you stand for and how to deliver on your vision. As the business grows, things that are implicit need to be embedded into the company's processes.
- Establish trust. People will be more engaged with brands they trust. Especially in e-commerce, deal honestly with customers, sort out problems. Be ready with crisis management.
- Think about your brand, not just the product. Brand is your identity; who you are; not just a logo. Our values - trustworthy, reliable, 'always on'.
. - Always be ready to reinvent yourself. What makes you successful today isn't necessarily what will make you successful tomorrow. Figure out your place and learn along the way but you must adapt.
- For the founders of the business - have better people than you and work out your place in the organisation as it grows.
- In the end, it's just a business. Don't let it take over your life. 80 hours a week up to a point, but not forever. Plan 'down time' from the beginning.
Have a good weekend
Regards
Laurie
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