You Have a Dream! What Now? Part 6: Envisaging Your Product & Future
You Have a Dream is the first of sixteen chapters of StartUp Space and explores ways to magnify human capabilities.
StartUp Space is an entrepreneur's need-to-know guidebook that instructs entrepreneurs on starting and running a business by visualising its structure and information flows.
Zen of Product from Conception to Consumption
To run a successful business, you need a product. You have to provide some service or sell a product. You can either create a product or sell someone else's. It is preferable to have your own, but if you don't have one yet, you have limited options. However, in the beginning, you have to overcome some disadvantages.
Your product's quality, usability, and marketing will determine the success of your business.
The essential attributes of a successful product are its ability to solve a problem, enhance an existing solution, or offer unparalleled affordability. In general, products that make user's life more convenient have the highest chance of success, providing that marketing is proportional to the task.
The marketplace is a vast expanse of products, many mediocre. Aim to create a product, or combination of products, that outshines and outperforms those already available.
The meditation on creating an outstanding product is a profitable investment in time.
Decoding Competitor Success
Once you have selected the product, it is essential to look at the competition. Find the most successful companies operating in your field and try to determine the reason for their success.
Pay particular attention to mistakes that they made and how they corrected them.
Learn from the trailblazers and avoid the reefs they've charted.
Your competition is your most constructive source of learning. You can avoid making mistakes they already made. Eleanor Roosevelt said that you must learn from the mistakes of others because you can't possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.
Allocate some time for mistakes you are going to make. You'll need it!
Once you know what is going on in your section of the industry, you can tune your product and company policies to make it better than the ones that competitors sell. Think globally. Your quest for market conquest isn't confined to a couple of guys in a neighbourhood or town but a couple of guys in the wide world.
You must aim to have a superior product and marketing strategy compared to competitors.
In your products' differentiation lay the seeds of success.
You can then grow those seeds in understanding and familiarity with the most favourable environment for its growth.
Riding the Sustainability Megatrend to Success
Sun Tzu, a Chinese general, military strategist, and philosopher who lived 2500 years ago and wrote the acclaimed book The Art of War said: "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
Take a hint from the ancient strategist and research product, competition and marketplace. That might slow you down initially, but it will make you much wiser about your environment, and victory and success will be in your sights.
The bottom line is that you will win if you know yourself and the environment in which you operate. If you don't, you won't. Look at trends and anticipate future needs. Consider unprecedented technological advances.
Technological evolution doesn't ebb - it's an unstoppable tide reshaping the business and social landscape.
Watch megatrends. Sustainability is a tidal wave reshaping consumer consciousness. Align with environmental trends and offer solutions to bring us profitability proportionate to preserving our shared world.
Remember, your product is your passport to prosperity, so ensure it's the best to your current abilities.
Bottom Line
Please Note: Below conclusion is for all six You Have a Dream! What now? parts. The same applies to the heading, The Way To Change, which will appear in every following chapter as an environmental section of StartUp Space. Each section will include lessons from its chapter.
Shaping Society through Knowledge and Collaboration
Success is a matter of choice. Once you choose your goal, create a plan, assess, and acquire the knowledge you need for a successful business.
Learn the basics of running the company, but remember that lots of business management is common sense.
The best investment of time you will ever make is an investment in your knowledge, thinking and collaboration with someone who supplements your expertise.
Continuous education is vital to remaining relevant and effective in a world where technological advancements and business methodologies unfold at the speed of a chain reaction.
Find credible sources from which to learn.
Prosperity will enable you to change your lifestyle and put you in control of your time and actions. You can use this freedom to reassess your priorities and engage in issues other than personal prosperity.
Success gives you magnified influences on society and enables you to exert greater pressure for positive change in our world.
Our greatest priority is to arrest and reverse global warming and the environmental damage we have inflicted to Earth. Not only are we devastating flora and fauna that support us and other species, but we are also perpetuating an economic and political system based on ethics that reward the destruction of nature and the human spirit.
Reversal of this devastation has become a matter of our collective survival, and we must drive changes ourselves. It has become evident that today's global "leaders" are brazenly pursuing policies of self-enrichment. An improvement in the social and environmental fabric of the world is insignificant in comparison.
Most of them don't give a damn, as if they will be spared when chips are down. Demented mobs rule a significant part of our world. Icarus moment won't miss them. Some have already fallen.
Collaboration with like-minded people is essential for achieving a more significant impact on any changes we wish to make.
We must fight with all potential we have as we are fighting for our future.
The Way To Change
The Collective Journey Towards Eco-Revival
Please Note: The continuation of The Way To Change will be at the bottom of each of the following 15 articles of the StartUp Space
The future might be an enigma, but tomorrow's fruits are in today's seeds.
The old maxim that says knowledge is power still holds. It is our first step towards transforming ourselves into who we wish to be. Throughout You Have a Dream, the first of sixteen chapters of StartUp Space, we've explored liberation of our inner potential to increase our powers. Now, we must implement that knowledge. We must now explore how to use it to rejuvenate the environment and reverse global warming.
First, it is crucial to understand the complexities of global warming. It's not just about the rising temperatures but also acknowledging its repercussions on our ecosystems, weather patterns, and the socio-economic fabric.
Secondly, sustainability innovations must facilitate wealth creation for entrepreneurs and society. We cannot believe that people will become entrepreneurs for purely altruistic reasons, as much as some would like to. Most people who live from hand to mouth cannot afford it. They must be rewarded for their contribution to a sustainable and prosperous future.
However, more productive companies are more environmental benefits they generate for themselves and ecology in the Environmental Economy.
This scenario demands a shift in how we design products, services, and systems.
Embracing renewable energy, recycling and upcycling, waste reduction, clean air and water, and sustainable agriculture are some of the keystones for environmental business models.
Every solution contributing to a cleaner planet is a step towards success, an arena abundant with opportunities. The goal is to create positive change ripple effects that benefit the environment's health.
We need millions of entrepreneurs to participate in this initiative of creating vibrant ecosystems where society cultivates the planet's health, and beneficial economic growth to impact global warming significantly.
Realising the dream of creating a pristine world demands enthusiasm, persistence, and collaboration.
The knowledge we gather lights the path forward, but our collective will to walk that path will determine the outcome.
Next chapter of StartUp Space is Organisational Design and first part will be published next week is Oganisational Structure: Visualising your company before you start it.
The previous article in the Renaissance 2.0 series is: Visualise Your Future
If you found this post interesting, please consider restacking it and sharing it with your audience?
You will guide my writing in the future if you share your thoughts in the comments.
