I think of myself as small boned, especially when I stand next to a natural-born rugby player. Unfortunately this doesn’t save me from my muffin top but I know I have a weight advantage compared to most. This has nothing to do with the topic for this week except for the word Lean.

This business concept of Lean started in the late 1980’s in a Japanese Toyota factory. The principles are simple, eliminate any overburden, inconsistency and waste. In manufacturing you can probably see how this can contribute towards improvements in the system. Toyota also viewed the system as incorporating not just their factories but also their suppliers and customers.

In the early 2000’s a few insightful people applied these principles to the world of business start-ups. The basis was that a start-up is not yet a business and is full of risk. Applying the old rules could be considered overburden and [time] wasteful, until the basic business model was discovered.

For example, a traditional business would tend to write and review a business plan. When a business knows what it’s selling, who to and for how much, a business plan makes a lot of sense. In a start-up you don’t know any of this so not only will your business plan be fictional and full of assumptions it’s also a huge waste of time.

Another example of a traditional approach is to develop or build your product and service before introducing it to your customers. Can you see how, if you don’t know explicitly who your customer is and what they value then you’re wasting time and money building something you only assume you can sell? Again, in a traditional business you’re probably already talking to your existing customers and have an idea of what’s important to them.

In a start-up we definitely need to describe our intent but this can be done on one sheet of paper not dozens and dozens (like a typical business plan is).

It’s far more economical to write out your assumptions broadly across your business (customer, value, problem, solution, pricing, etc), then push away from your desk and start talking to people to confirm how right or wrong your assumptions are. In the process you will almost certainly discover you don’t understand what your customers want or in fact if they are really who you’ll be serving. 

This will save you a lot of time and money and it will also allow you to refocus quickly so you can get onto the right path faster.

When should I use a Lean approach?

As I hinted at, when there are more risks (assumptions) than facts you should pull out the Lean principles. While it’s great for all highly innovative start-ups, it is appropriate when extending an existing business into a new market or new product line.

Why aren’t we all doing this?

Great question and I can only speculate that old traditions are hard to break. Like many personal habits you might have, it doesn’t seem obvious to do the opposite until you’re aware what you’re doing is causing you pain. Many people wouldn’t think their approach to their new venture is the reason for their failure. Typically they assume it is their lack of effort.

When I first learnt about this I still continued to do the traditional check-list. I created an entity, ordered business cards, set-up a website all before validating my new business model. My first reaction was, “well of course you need all this stuff, every new business needs a website don’t they?”

Well, convention is just that, a way in which something is usually done.

It took me a while but on my third or forth business idea I didn’t start with the website, I spent a day creating a lean canvas and then started talking to people. It probably took 4 or 5 weeks before I realised I had no hope and just cancelled it. I only wasted a bit of time. Nothing to unwind, no printing or accountancy fees, and best of all I had energy to jump into the next idea because I wasn’t completely spent.

I still fall into the old trap so my hope is if more people understand, appreciate and give this a try, we will all become aware of our approach and be open to change convention.

Best of luck with your own [life] adventures,

Do you remember those Far Side cartoons? I loved the ones with cows standing on their hind legs. The best one for me was the young boy putting all his weight into a school door as he tried to push it open. The sign on the door says pull and the sign at the bottom of the stairs says “Midvale school for the gifted”. Makes me smile every time. 

Did you notice that the door also has a handle? To most (less gifted) people this indicates that you should grab and pull, so Gary Larson made it just a little funnier adding this, as well as the sign. 

In the real world when I approach certain doors, my smile turns to a mild grimace. On many doors in professional buildings there is a handle on the pull side but also the push side. Maybe it’s just me, but do you feel just a little silly when you grab the handle and pull, maybe a few times, before realising you need to push the handle?

So many items we use in life don’t consider the ‘normal’ human using it. Many times a product is designed just so it looks great. But good design is a balance of both form (how it looks) and function (how it performs). 

In business, being design led involves bringing form and function together at the beginning of the creation process, not at the end when all you can possibly do is add some figurative lipstick. 

We are all technically challenged to some degree. When you are next struggling with technology keep in mind it’s predominantly because it is poorly designed. It’s not your fault!! Sure, highly specialised products are complicated to use but a lot of today’s technology is ubiquitous and should now be completely obvious to operate. 

If something is well designed it should not need a manual, you should not need to go to a class to learn how to use it and it should not make you look foolish. It should be obvious! Ideally it should be intuitive. When you first pick it up it should just work. 

Our challenge, along with anyone building products, is simple design may be obvious to understand but it's really hard to discover. It’s a great challenge to have though, especially when you see someone pick up your product, start using it and a small smile appears on their face as it just works. 

If you’re involved in building products and if you’re not already doing so, please do some research on design-led organisations … for the sake of all the gifted people out there. 

Best of luck with your own [life] adventures

I first heard this statement over 20 years ago. I was working in IT management for a technology services company in Auckland and as you do when you’re young, I asked my CEO if he would mentor me. Luckily for me he said yes. I don’t remember how many sessions we had but I’ve never forgotten this statement…

“It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.”

Over these last 20 years I’ve worked a few times in healthcare and dabbled in education. Most recently I’ve spent time in the environmental space. All of these are hugely rewarding industries and it was a conscious effort on my part as I was looking to try and make a difference in the world.

So creating this latest start-up was a bit of a dilemma for me. Quick background, our product Shock is a website builder with the simplicity of Instagram. We’re attempting to show that the Internet doesn’t have to be a complicated space and anyone and everyone should be able to have their own identity online. Anyway, this is clearly back in the IT industry for me with none of the feel-good aspects of teaching our children or saving lives. 

Is this really what I want to do?

A year in and I was reminded of my CEO's suggestion, “It’s not what you do”, at the moment working in a high-tech start-up, “it’s how you do it [that matters].” 

I started to see the opportunities and the possibilities that were probably already there, to make a real difference. Here are 3 “How you do its” that I’m enjoying at the moment …

• I’m spending a lot of time writing and realised I don’t need to be inside to do this, I live close to a park and love the creativity of being close to nature.
• The simplicity of Shock makes it great for charities so we’ve decided to give charities a free website. 
• Our team gives a lot to this project but we are amazingly accommodating of our lives outside of this business. It feels so motivating when everyone is operating like this.

My lesson in this is the possibility is always around us, regardless of what we’re doing, we just need to be looking in the right direction.

Best of luck with your own [life] adventures.

Thanks Garth!

Tim.

A doctor, journalist and software engineer walk into a bar…

The doctor immediately notices the strain on the bartender's face and the colour of his skin. She quietly and carefully makes a suggestion to the bartender to get a check-up and then orders a kombucha.

As the journalist enters he feels the vibe in the room and casually chats to a few people, noticing how many people are trying to escape their life for a while through social conversation and alcohol. He makes some notes, being careful to only initial peoples names, for an article he plans to issue tomorrow.

The software engineer knows the bartender by name, waves at a few customers and sits down with his free drink to review the sales. The software engineer owns the bar. 

This is obviously not a joke (well I’m only assuming you're not laughing). It’s actually an analogy I use to remind myself of how we have well established, indoctrinated and publicly understood codes of ethics for medicine and journalism but nothing for our information technology industry. 

As you know, doctors know all about patient confidentiality and ensuring their actions aim to do no harm. The journalist will always protect the privacy of their source of information. 

But what do we teach our new technology entrepreneurs? 

Worse still, even if we are starting to touch on this subject in schools, what do students see their potential heroes doing today with their super-large technology businesses?

I realise this sounds a bit negative, is a blanket generalisation and not all Internet businesses should be tarnished with the same brush. However, when some very public businesses are not held accountable to moral standards (especially when laws so quickly go out of date), small businesses have a huge challenge competing or even sailing in a slightly different direction.

And this is where I find myself. I’m not trying to make excuses but it is a very real challenge, caught between ideals and income.

We’re excited to be launching and marketing our new product but realistically, advertising today falls into the lap of Facebook and Google. Personally, I don’t like their data practices but do I have much choice when most other channels offer far less coverage, poorly targeted algorithms or lackluster participation?

So what’s the answer? Something we can all do and I’m doing now is take control of our own practices. My business will be putting together some simple but clear descriptions of how we’ll work with our customers, their privacy, our own transparency and where we will and will-not invest our (limited) resources.

And to be sure, there are some brave companies trying to do the right thing. I’m also an eternal optimist and believe innovation can be a salvation. We just need to look at what ChatGPT is doing to Google. 

Do you work for one of these innovative companies that don’t drop their money into Facebook or Google’s lap? Please share your thoughts and perspective so we can all start to move the needle.

Best of luck with your own [life] adventures

Tim.

Do you get inspired by the many great leaders describing their techniques in LinkedIn posts and further afield? I know I do. Occasionally I read or watch some advice and their answers seem so obvious, you know it must be right.

I’ve been in the business world for a while now and I’ve often wondered if I should share any of my own experiences. Being the type of person I am, I normally think I have nothing of value to share. When the Internet came along (yes, I was working before the Internet) I thought maybe this would be a way to communicate without having to stand up in front of people, but I couldn’t latch onto any specific topic. I started on an outline for a book, created the odd blog and tried newsletters for a while but they all just petered out. I now really admire and respect people who can spread a consistent message over a growing mountain of writings, articles or videos.

But I now find myself leading an endeavour to hopefully make a positive change in our world and I’m being encouraged to talk more about it. 

We’re a couple of years into our development of Shock and I took stock of the previous start-ups I’ve worked in (4) and the products I’ve worked on (14) and realised I probably have plenty to share and now a good reason to do it.

So this newsletter will share my experiences as we attempt to improve the lives of small business owners, share how a reluctant and introverted start-up CEO deals with these challenges and share how we view this journey through a slightly different lens to most.

We all have something to share so I’d encourage you to do the same and in return I hope you get something from these articles.

Best of luck with your own [life] adventures.

Tim.

If you’d like to learn more about us, please visit our website or reach out to me directly.