Tag Archives: New

How Do You Evaluate A New Business Opportunity? Six Questions

Situation: A company has been presented with a new business opportunity. The opportunity is compatible with the company’s current business, but also involves skills and markets with which the company is not familiar. How do you evaluate a new business opportunity?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • There are at least four critical questions to assess as you evaluate any new businesses opportunity:
    • What is the total available market, and what is the immediately convertible market for the product or service?
    • Can you acquire expertise in the new markets that this will open to you?
    • Do you have a track record starting and nurturing new business within your company?
    • Is there sufficient seed money available – through company funds or outside investment – to keep the effort going for at least a couple of years as you develop the core team that will operate this business and gain traction?
  • If there is an offer of outside investment, consider how many months this funding will support the salaries of the team that will build this business, plus operating and overhead costs. You want to be sure to give yourself an adequate runway.
  • New business development opportunities typically require huge energy, creativity and focus for the first few years. Key management will have to devote all of their effort during the start-up period. Can the company afford to lose the services of key personnel for the time that you estimate this effort will take?
  • Before deciding to pursue this opportunity, take the time to investigate the market for this opportunity.
    • In particular, look for other companies that have tried to enter this market, and learn from their experience.
    • Develop a network of advisors who understand this market and can help you understand both the workings of the market and why companies may have struggled trying to enter the market.

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How Would You Address a New Employee Challenge? Three Thoughts

Situation: A company just hired an individual to fill a key position. The position has a steep learning curve, and requires an on-site presence so the CEO made sure during the interview process to emphasize that he wanted a 3-5 year service commitment. Two days after the new individual started he told the CEO that his wife and child are moving to North Carolina and asked whether he could he work remotely from NC. The CEO said this was not an option. The employee says that he will stay, but the CEO is concerned whether this individual will fulfill his verbal commitment of service. How should the CEO handle this situation going forward?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Verbal commitments made during an interview process are difficult to enforce. Further, under California law once you have hired an employee, you cannot fire or let the employee go except for cause – performance or company financial adjustments such as layoffs.
  • What should the CEO say to the employee at this point about the situation?
    • Thank him for his honesty. Let him know that if the situation changes you would appreciate knowing as soon as possible. Assure the employee that you will not fire or otherwise penalize him for giving you this notice.
  • Is there anything else that the CEO can do to protect his training investment?
    • As the employee moves from training into productive work, make it one of his responsibilities to thoroughly document the position and responsibilities. If he eventually leaves, this may reduce the learning curve of his successor.

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How Do You Engage People in a New Platform? Three Strategies

Interview with Luosheng Peng, CEO & President, GageIn

Situation: A fast-growing company is working to engage new users on their platform. They are leveraging ease of use, demonstrated ROI, and fit within an existing ecosystem as their levers to attract and engage new users. What have you found effective to attract and engage new users in a new platform or service?

Advice from Luosheng Peng:

  • The most important factors to attract new users are ease of use and a demonstrable ROI. It is important to address a complex value proposition simply and easily.
    • You must know, ahead of time, the single most important value for your target user. Your examples must be clearly tied to your target user’s most important need.
    • Quick, simple, visual and verbal illustrations are effective. For example, we used short and fun videos like Tracker the dog to explain our products.
  • You must demonstrate a clear ROI and increased productivity. Your ROI must be real if you want to gain users attention – particularly if you want to gain viral levels of attention.
    • In business intelligence, finding information is not a problem. The challenge is finding the right information, filling the gaps in information from standard sources, and delivering it at the right time. We spent a great deal of development time getting this part of our product right.
    • To improve understanding of your ROI, engage early adopters and get their feedback on your current features and how to improve your platform. Early adopters are more analytical and passionate than other users. They want to be acknowledged so be responsive to them.
    • Offer a freemium model so that new users can try you out and test your value proposition. If they like what they experience, offer a low cost limited premium model with incrementally scaled pricing for additional features or functionality.
  • Manage your ecosystem. Building a new ecosystem takes a lot of effort and expense. Most small ventures will want to compliment or fit into an existing ecosystem.
    • Existing ecosystems may already be crowded. Small companies have to be able to break through the crowd and be seen. We completed major integrations with Yammer’s Enterprise Social Network and Salesforce.com’s CRM. Your platform will have the most success if you address a gap or unmet need within the existing ecosystem.

You can contact Luosheng Peng at [email protected].

Key Words: Platform, New, User, Ease of Use, ROI, Ecosystem, Business Intelligence, Value, Proposition, Audience, Example, Freemium, Early Adopter, Yammer, Salesforce.com

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