A month or so ago Graeme Wood, the co-founder of the immensely successful wotif.com, delivered a guest lecture to my E-Commerce students on the topic “Ten Steps to Online Success”.
He discussed with us his experience of coming up with an innovative idea, prototyping it, and seeing it through to the thriving, global business that it is now. A business generating, last year, a profit of $34.5 Million (source).
Below is a summary of the questions that he believes must be answered in creating a successful business and some tid bits of wisdom that ressonated with me. If you’re serious about starting or developing a business – online or offline – you might find yourself having a few “ah-ha” moments if you get out pen and paper and start answering the questions. I did.
Who are you?
Can you describe yourself in very simple terms? What is your personality? What are your principles?
Why this is important: If you don’t know, everything is flexible
At Wotif, their mission is to add value to both the customer and supplier and to keep it simple (no distracting ads on their website, simple navigation and collecting from the users only the data absolutely necessary).
What are your skills?
Strengths? Weaknesses? Do a full inventory on yourself so that you know where you need to fill the blanks (e.g. by up-skilling or by finding the right people to work with)
Who is your customer?
Can you really define how your customer is going to benefit?…. and in a REALLY compelling way?
Who else is doing the same thing and how will you offer a different experience that is of value?
How are you going to make money?
How will you ensure your cashflow?
Don’t be afraid to take on big business
Funding/Business Plan
“The worst thing you can do with a good idea is nothing.”
Prototype it and test it in your garage.
Raising capital is not always necessary. Try to do it for nothing!
Building a Team
What sort of people do you want?
It’s important that your techie’s understand the business side
Experiment
Make little changes/tweaks and test things as you go. Avoid massive overhauls.
Be prepared to fail.
Keep it Simple
Ask a simple question until you get a simple answer.
As you can see, these are not complex questions or ideas. I think the main message I took away from Graeme’s talk is that there is nothing complicated about business – just get the fundamentals sorted. I would add to this that online business is no different to offline business. It just uses different technology.
About James Quinn-Hawtin