oh dear god not again! gobi capital @ georgian college

Oh Dear God Not Again!Another Boring

Presentation

By Scotty Thom

Creation, Life, Death, The Undead

Who the hell are you?

• Scotty Thom• Failure, Sinner, Smelly• Piss Poor Sorry Excuse For A Man• Tinkerer, Writer, Dreamer• 14 years as an entrepreneur• 3,250 entrepreneurs helped

I see dead people.

What gives you the right to talk to us?

• 6 companies Founded or Co-Founded• Gobi Capital since 2009– Hotels, resorts, tech, service, green tech– Reviewed 500+ business plans and support docs

• Education: University of Guelph (BA Econ), Helsinki Univeristy of Technology (IBLP)

• Habitatation: Helsink, Finland | Sendai, Japan | Guelph, Waterloo, Toronto, Canada

Well maybe not dead people.

So what?

• 10,000 hours to master something (Malcolm G.!)• 26,000 hours if I worked 9am-5pm M-F• 52,000 hours approximately since 2000• Barrie & Toronto Open Coffee Club, 10

Startups.com, CoFounder’s Lab (Canada)

This is all I do:Startups & Growth

More like dead things.

If you’re such a big sh*t, why are you here?

When I was 18 and getting started, someone helped me.

I’m here for the one person in this room who gives a f*ck and wants to change the world.

And goth.

Now onto the good stuff

• The Start– An idea; preferably a good one– What makes a good idea?• Meet Philo. We’re going to wax with her.

– Prototype– Beta– Commercialize

I see gothpreneurs.

If We Have Time

• The Middle– Pre-Sales– Sales– Marketing– Creating A Cycle– Post-Sales

• The Finish– Exit stage left

So I guess you could say I see dead things and gothpreneurs.

Your Idea

It had better be goodSo what makes a good idea?

Yard StickBox Of Possibilities

Current Psychology, Thinking, RationaleA Focus

An Ability To See Opportunity

And I want to see more!

Box Of Possibilities

Problem

Your Solution

AlternativeSolution Client

This is where you willoperate your business

Box Of Possibilities

Problem

Their Solution

AlternativeSolution Client

Your competitors have a similar offering

This box represents you andall of your competitors competing for the same clients, market segmentor industry.

Range Of Potential Client Types

One Market Segment

The Sack Of Many Segmentsaka

“Your Marketplace”

AnotherMarket Segment

Luck + Time + Focus = Timing (T)

TT+1

T+2

T+n

T-1

T-2

T-n

(then you have a sad sack of sorries)

Assumptions were wrong?

Worst case scenario is worse than expected?

Buying behaviour changes?

No organic growth?

Massive systemic power failure?

Your possible acquirer decides to become a competitor?

Startups become unsexy?

Co-founder going through a divorce?

Everyone says no?

What If…

Current Psychology

• What are the behaviours of potential clients?• What are the trends in the market segment?• Why does your client exist?• For any factoid on your client, ask yourself –

“What does this mean?”• Continue to ask the question – “What is

missing?”

Today is day 942.

Ability To Focus

• Ability to say no– Terrible Two’s– “You’re doing some cool sh*t, but that’s not for

me right now.”• Knowing your end game• Grounded values / Having a yard stick• FTW! Success!

941 days to go…

How Do You See Opportunity?

• Determined by experience– Failure– Tests– Hypothesize– Series of assumptions to guide you

• External Reinforcement– Positive is good– Negative tends to be more effective when younger

Prototype

• Write It Out!– Does it make sense?– Can you easily explain all of it to your Mother?

• Do the work. Stop planning, start doing.– Try existing solutions– Talk to potential clients (Alpha clients)

• Paper It Up!– Wireframe, develop it, code it– Build the tech / service offering / etc

Addendum on Prototypes

• Build – Test– Paper / code is good to start– Then test it!– Repeat process – Build – Test –Build – Test

• Test with who?– Clients! • 10 Alpha clients• 40 Beta clients

• Methodology – small failures, quick failures

Usable Prototypes

Build It

Test It

Take A Step Back

• Hit on the following points– Your plan has probably changed– The market has probably changed– Consumer / business sentiment has prob changed– Everything may have changed

• Go back to the drawing board and ensure your assumptions and hypothesis are still correct

The Middle

• You now have a product or service. Congrats!• You will have alpha and beta clients.• How do you leverage everything you have to

get traction in the marketplace?

Traction = Sales

Nothing happens until somebody sells something.That somebody is you and everyone in your org.

But I’ve never had to sell anything…

• Pre-sales process• Sales Process• Post-sales process

A few authors for you to tap into:• Jeffrey Fox • Tom Hopkins• Seth Godin• Marketing

• Zig Ziglar• Timothy Ferriss• “Strategic Selling”• “SPIN Selling”