[Version française plus bas/French version below]
Many people say simplicity is the key to success when in business. Many people on the InterWebs have put out their theories of what it needs to have success in business. Of course, I have my own, inspired by one of my University teachers, Dr. Richard-Marc Lacasse. What I like about his theory is its simplicity. Called the “Success Puzzle”, his theory is good, as examples, for aspiring entrepreneurs who want to know the vital elements needed to build a business, or for investors to know what they need to look for when investing in a company.
In the following posts, I’ll explain more in details the elements of this theory, but here’s a summary:
More to come on this subject!
Version Française
Plusieurs personnes disent que le simplicité est la clé du succès en affaires. Plusieurs personnes sur l’InterWeb ont établi leur théories sur ce qu’il faut pour avoir du succès en affaires. Bien entendu, j’ai la mienne, fortemment inspirée de celle d’un de mes professeurs d’université, Dr. Richard-Marc Lacasse. Ce que j’aime de sa théorie est sa simplicité. Intitulée le “Casse-Tête de la Réussite”, sa théorie est parfaite, par exemple, pour des aspirants entrepreneurs cherchant à comprendre les éléments vitaux requis pour démarrer et développer une entreprise, ou pour des investisseurs cherchant à comprendre ce qu’il faut chercher et voir avant d’investir dans une entreprise.
Dans les articles qui suivront, j’expliquerai en plus amples détails les éléments de cette théorie, mais en voici un résumé:
Plus à venir sur ce sujet!
Dakx
President at work! He looks as good as usual, showing off nearby a MacBook that has a PacMan eating the Apple… That’s fashion for you!
He better deliver!
Dakx
[video]
Some of you know that I’m working on a new startup. When I started working on the project, less than 3 months ago, there was plenty of hype in that niche, plenty of money and limited competition.
Now, 3 months later, we seem to be in an industry with too many players, where industry analysts seem to have covered every aspect you can imagine of building a successful business in that niche, and where’s the money gone?
I am far from being discouraged, on the contrary, this is STARTUP 2.0 mode for us! Watch out!
Dakx
I also added a Comments feature for the website, using the easy-to-use Disqus.
Update 1: But I am having issues with formating the content of the comment page correctly in the right places. I am unsure about my programming skills at this point…
Dakx
It took me a few days of work but here it is!!! I know content is king, but you have to start somewhere with the packaging and flexibility of it!
I use the Tumblr blog platform. I decided to stick with Tumblr because I finally found the template I was looking for and figured out a way to integrate everything I wanted in the same single front page.
A few things I like:
I also integrated all of my Facebook Status Updates and Twitter Updates with Ping.fm. It allows me to update a bunch of statuses all at once, great!!
More to come…
Dakx
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of the State of California, summarized what we need to do when a company is going through problems. And it only takes four words: Get Off Your Butt.
A video of him taken on September 26, two months ago is available here.
Solving a problem is never easy. But it takes the right attitude:
I haven’t seen any of this in the auto industry the past week or so.
The success of a company only goes through sales/revenues. A successful company should not need Government grants, special bonds, R&D tax credits, etc… These are incentives to improve performance, but without sales, it’s impossible to really succeed and be productive.
And to make a parallel, people in Quebec have asked me what we can do with the manufacturing industry: well, here’s your answer: Get Off Your Butt.
Dakx
Over the past few days, I’ve had numerous people asking me about the auto industry, the bailout Big 3 is asking from various Governments, including those of the US and Canada, what we can do to solve it and if it was time to buy stocks.
Well. I can answer one question right now.
Stocks of the Big 3 (GM, Ford, Chrysler) has plummeted at such a low price, is now the time to buy to make a lot of money?
The answer is simple: No. Do not buy stocks in Big 3 unless you want to loose more money. There are two reasons for this: first, never buy when a stock is going down; second, they are bankrupt and the bailout hasn’t been approved.
The second question I got was if we should bailout the car industry. My answer is no, but.
I understand that the industry is in a difficult situation. Competition is strong. Economy is weak. Pension plans are draining profits and productivity.
But as Mitt Romney, former Governor of the State of Massachussets and Republican Presidential Candidate for the 2008 RNC, puts it in a very good article in the NY Times:
Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.
Every company who struggles in its business must make changes to adapt, changes the Big 3 have not made and still refuse to make.
The bailout is not a solution. It’s a band-aid on a scratch that will still keep growing and become a real scar because the infection will not disappear. Bankruptcy isn’t the only option, but the bailout isn’t one either.
If I had a company that manufactured a product that no one wanted, why would I ask the Government to help me? There are no reasons.
Without a clear plan, I refuse to allow my Government to loan any kind of money. Big 3 has to present a plan that will solve the current problem.
My solutions:
1) Ask for the sale.
Detroit must ask Americans, Canadians and consumers worldwide to buy their cars. Not demand, ask. Politely, with humility. And at the same time, understand why these same consumers would not.. I have a few ideas of why consumers are not buying American cars:
Why are the CEOs or VP of Sales for the Big 3 not on CNN Larry King, Oprah and other media news outlets asking consumers to buy American cars? “Can you please help our industry and country by buying American cars? We will accomodate you to whatever you want and need and will build cars that you will love.”
2) Change leadership.
I every crisis, a leader is needed. A General who will rally the troops for the cause, unite everyone to solve the problem. But this isn’t happening at Big 3. No one is strong enough, no one has enough respect to get factory workers, sales people, mid-level management, unions and the rest of it to start working toward a single goal: make a better car and sell it.
Everyone must sacrifice their perks to keep the industry alive. Nothing is a given unless you make money. If you lose money, you don’t deserve a single penny of your salary. UAW must find new leadership that gets consumer and worker’s trust. But I would emphasize in this new 21st century paradigm, that these same union leaders must first and foremost get trust from consmers, help increase sales, work toward a common goal and then, ask for new work packages for their union members.
3) Top line vs. bottom line.
Employees of a company are its nerve system. They are what allows the company to make money. They sell, they manufacture, they support. But they can also bankrupt that same company.
4) Focus on long term.
Enough companies have died and enough mistakes were done trying to manage on a quarterly basis. Companies and its employees must connect with consumers and work for the long term benefit of each others.
These are just first step elements to restructure the companies. A check will not solve anything, and most importantly, if these companies don’t do everything they can and cannot imagine to start selling cars soon, they are just good enough for bankruptcy for me.
Dakx
Map of our 5th day on the road! 598 miles (963km), with lots of wind and rain. Glad to be home though!
Tuesday is our fifth consecutive driving day. But we need to add packing day and Dad’s traveling day to Seattle on top of that… We are happy to be in Canada, but we are tired!
We slept in London, Ontario this past night. I have been to London quite a few times in the past 15 years. My first plane ride ever when I was a kid was to London, Ontario. I always liked this city. I knew some hotels so we weren’t lost.
We got up at our usual 8-8:30am time and left London at around 9:40am. We took the 401 highway through Toronto that drives us into the Province of Quebec, then on highway 20 all the way to Quebec City, stopping in Charny, where my parents live, right before the bridge to QC.
We were really hoping to reach Quebec City that day, but it was a long drive and weather forecast wasn’t very positive. 600 miles in one day, in hard weather conditions, isn’t easy.
London was freezing cold. It was probably the coldest morning on our trip. To top that, wind was really strong and pushing us aside on the highway… So we couldn’t drive very fast.
We passed Toronto around noon and were heading toward Kingston and Cornwall when we started getting rain and melting snow, with strong winds and more. This is what we were hoping not to get!
It delayed us to reach Montreal right at traffic hour… And Montreal’s traffic sucks. It’s worse than Seattle I think. There is one road. The weather was awful. People were driving crazy… It took us at least 1 hour of extra time being stuck in traffic in Montreal… Which was in fact something like a 5-7 mile traffic jam. We were going nuts!
But it was still 7pm. We could make it to Quebec City that night. We kept pushing. We stopped halfway between Montreal and QC to my favorite chicken restaurant, St-Hubert. The funny story is that I hadn’t had St-Hubert chicken in 2 years. I was craving it. I told that the day we left Seattle that no matter what, when we got to QC, we had to stop there for lunch or dinner, depending at what time we would be there. I was glad it was dinner.
I ended up eating way too much. Made me feel tired on the road after! We had only 1.5 hours to go, but I was sooooo tired! But we made it home at 11pm at night. We were happy.
Our fifth day performance was: 598 miles (963km) over 12 hours of driving, in a long 13.5 hour day on the road.
Some pictures to come, more crazy Turcotte videos, and more details about the trip itself and what I learned from it!
Dakx