Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Steven, I`d be glad to facilitate a "tiger kitten team" (a subgoup within this team)to start developing processes for team participation and determining some next steps. As the "Create a Business Together" discussion and voting was going on, I was putting together some rough drafts regarding the organizational process.

I have some lists and formats that might be used to identify team member skills and interests, evaluate experience levels, define workstyle preferences, propose level of participation agreements, and assess the motivating factors for each team member.

I`d like to share these drafts with other like-minded process-thinkers who have similar suggestions so that we could cull the ideas outside of this thread, and then post them here for review and discussion by other team members.

If this concept doesn`t clash for what you have in mind for how to proceed, I`d gladly offer to coordinate this effort with interested participants.

Denise

Seems to me those big companies often started with accounting advice? Then they saw a market for technology (IT) consulting. I don`t see that we could use them as a shell for a model, really. What if we were to start a list of those "problem domains."

For example, and from reading the threads on this forum, it seems there are repeating problems for the micro-business owner.

• Getting lost in the daily process of running the new business
• Having an undefined overview of the business strategy
• Inability to formulate an applicable business plan, for lack of time or problematic financial projections
• Being overwhelmed at where to start
• How to hire a first employee when sales are too big for one person, but not generating enough regular income for a salaried employee.

I`m just listing some of the things that stick in my mind, but we could develop a more specific list, I think? The next step would be to determine a rate structure, transaction process, implementation process, and so forth. How would a "client" enter into this overall set of events.

Awesome!

Denise, far from clashing, I see this as a key component for this venture.

Not only is this process necessary in the immediate (or near-immediate) context, I`m convinced that the ability to smoothly and effectively repeat (a version of) this process will ultimately be one of the core value creating competencies of the proposed business.

I get the premise of moving the working sessions outside the main thread and bringing back culled work product for broader review. In a typical bricks-and-mortar setting, I`d have no hesitation in going that route.

This particular context is new, so I`m unsure (read: please, people, give an opinion!) as to whether it`s the right way to go or what options we have.
PRO:
Reduce clutter in the main thread
- Increases likelihood of participation in main thread by those who would not if that thread had, what for them, is a low signal-to-noise ratio.
- Increases efficiency of sub-team as they collaborate in a medium with a high signal-to-noise ratio.

CON:
- To the extent the deliberations of a sub-team are opaque, the broader community of participants may feel disenfranchised (and thus withdraw participation).
- To the extent a sub-team`s collaboration is conducted using a medium other than the (for now) standard SuN forum
> participants may feel inconvenienced and thus participate less
> consolidating the record of all of the team`s activities into a common format could prove difficult down the road.

Denise, my current impulse is to use the "work outside and return results" model, but ... May I ask you to take on a prepatory task? That of soliciting additional perspective and deciding how to implement the sub-team discussion? We probably shouldn`t beat it to death, make the best decision we can in the next day or three and keep moving forward. But given that this issue will arise for this team in the context of other sub-teams and will likely arise for the other two teams as well, it seems worth making at least an effort ...

Thanks again, Denise. You know I`ll be there with you.

Steven

Craig, you`re right; we absolutely need to develop at least a starting list of likely services - because doing the market survey Mitey Mite asked me about doesn`t seem possible unless the services are known.

Gang, shout out what you think might be included. No editing yet, we`ll clean it up later.

Steven

Hey Steven,

I`d like to volunteer myself into the Tiger Kitten Team and join Denise in creating processes and teams so that development of our other Tiger Teams will become a seamless process itself.  The thing most on my mind at this time is team building, and I`m hoping we can build a process that identifies the best skills of everyone that wants to participate in this project.

I also have interests in photography, graphics design, and tech writing (possibly one of the few people at SuN that thinks grammar is fun).   I can’t wait to see where these and my other skills fit into the Tiger Teams project.

Creative Gal

 

Messages for everyone:

Steven: I`m with you on your viewpoints of the inside/outside discussion options. I already anticipated the need for this type of online collaboration effort (a couple weeks ago) and contacted Jeff Sloan, who subsequently referred me to Joel Welsh, about StartupNation`s capabilities for incorporating a means for this task. CraigL`s ideas list is a perfect example - we need a way to add other ideas to his list without having to post it in a separate entry somewhere further down the thread. I`m hoping to get a response soon (I sent out a follow-up message just yesterday). The "offsite" subgroup option was my backup idea, if we couldn`t get access to online collaboration here. And yes, I will certainly pursue the preparatory task you suggested.

CraigL: Speaking of good ideas ... you have a great start on defining the tasks for which people would have a need for our service (I know, defining is your specialty). This should spark some additional ideas, but it`s also a substantial list to start with. Fabulous input!

CreativeGal: Can I suggest a starting research task or two? (Take this as an open invitation  - any of you readers of this forum topic who would be interested, but who haven`t yet posted here.) Let`s check out ways that others assess skill levels, for their particular situations. Also, let`s look for the type of roadblocks that startup entrepreneurs repeatly encounter. I`m thinking we should focus on the most easily solvable and the most commonly encountered. We can use CraigL`s list as a guide. If we want to be statistically accurate, we should also include a numerical count to the recurring issues that we see mentioned.

Denise

Hello and happy Friday!

I would love to volunteer to help in process creation and join the creative process for building these teams! Although I am not so well versed in the technology end of this, as far as addressing domain issues, I am determined to get a better understanding of the services that will be offered here.

These team systems that develop here will be so helpful for other SUnproject ventures like Daniel`s e-learning and even Steve`s glutton--er- gluten-free products idea.

I am so excited to be a part of this!

Onward we go!

 

Relative to the "inside/outside" point: Someone on a different thread mentioned "forum software" and I suddenly had one of those "Doh!" moments.

Without yet having checked with Joel, I think SuN is using a forum package, which is what I`d do if I were setting up the community. In that case, there`s going to be some limited configurability to it, but not much.

If we`re going to be consultants, I would suggest that for small businesses we`re going to have to go much farther than Big 4 or other enterprise groups in one area: efficient use of existing resources.

So this would be an excellent demo or starting place to see how the Tiger Team thing would apply. If SuN can`t easily modify the forum package to handle an add-to list of "problem domains," what would be another way (or several) to accomplish such a growing list with the existing resources?

This will apply to any entrepreneur. Too many people have lots of money to go along with their ideas, and want the single-owner to apply the ideas, forgetting the budget constraints. Unfortunately, there`s that typical gab between theory and implementation. If this community business or project can start from the git-go with creative solutions for low-budget startups, it would likely be a good thing, right?