Most “Small Business” Books Want You To Fail & What You Can Do About It
If you’re anything like me you’ve picked up more than your share of management and leadership books with the single goal of finding the missing puzzle piece needed to push your company over the top and make it the next record breaking IPO.
After reading and evaluating more than my fair share of business books I believe most fall into one of two distinct groups. On one side we have the Small Business, aka “run by the gut” and on the other we have the Big Business or “run by the numbers” books with very few in between.
Today, I’d like to breakdown these boundaries and demonstrate how you can start running your small business by the numbers instead of just repeating past success and failures which is were I believe most “gut” feelings come from. Better yet, you can test what works and throw away what doesn’t. The power is yours.
It All Starts With KPI’s
In an earlier post we talked about being an a Mission and how having one can dramatically help your organization move in the same direction towards a single goal. If you haven’t read the “Are you on a Mission?” article …
Ruby, Rails & an Inspiring Community
Which is the most important? The tech or the community?
I’ve had the privilege of speaking with well over 1,500 software developers over the last few years and I think I can say with a reasonable level of confidence that most of the focus is always on the technology. I can also say this because I too was that way when I started.
I can remember when I first set out to learn Java. With a 1000 different ways to do everything and just as many examples of people showing how their way was better than the others, I soon found myself face-to-face with an ocean of libraries and examples but with no real sense of direction. So after 5 or 10 false starts I decided that while Java might be for some people it wasn’t for me.
How About a Cup of C# Instead?
After moving on from Java I lucked out and found C#. While many developers like to dismiss C# as a “single” platform language (sorry Mono), it was and currently still is one of my favorite languages. Not only is it syntactically beautiful (I like brackets, braces, and semicolons) but it can also be used …
Are you on a Mission?
I don’t know about you but when I hear and think about Mission and Vision statements the first thing that comes to mind is the large inspirational pictures that hang in well decorated offices.
You know the ones that people walk past on their way into work? The ones that “management” bought for $24.99 at the local office supply shop after skimming through the newest management or leadership book?
It’s nice for inspirational pictures but not quite the right source for an organization’s mission. This result in most Mission statements being just that. Words on a wall when they have the potential of bing much more.
Recently, I read a great book called Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson from 37signals. It’s a must read if you haven’t read it and a re-read if you have. In the book and again on their blog they talk about the importance of having a real mission that brings people together and serves as the the foundation of why your business exists.
I think they summed it up well when they said “there’s a world of difference between truly standing for something and having a mission statement that says you …
Logo Contest Winners!!
Breaking News!
The last 24 hours has been an exciting time around the SimplyCubed virtual complex! The results are finally in.
I’d like you to meet the newest addition to the SimplyCubed team and the winner of the 2012 SimplyCubed Logo Contest!
Applause! Applause!
We had 23 awesome people vote in our contest. You all rock!! And just to make sure we had a fair contest we used Random.org to generate true random numbers because pseudo-random are just not good enough to pick our winners.
Based on the rules we set before the contest we would give away a $25 Amazon Gift card for every 25 people that voted. Now this would normally mean that we would give away only 1 gift card but that would suck. So we threw out the rulebook and up the number to 4 winners for this drawing.
We now have 1 winner 4 winners that will receive gift cards!
We’d also like to give a special thanks to everyone that helped spread the word and got their friends to vote too.
If you didn’t vote or didn’t win. Don’t worry. We still like you and want to give you a second …
3, 2, 1 – Launch!
Boom! Bang! Kapow! We’re launched!
A quick thanks and appreciation out to everyone in the SimplyCubed Team for making today a great day. My hats off to you. I would also like to set the stage and let everyone know exactly who we are and what to expect in the coming weeks.
A bit about Us (the collective I)
My name is Charles and I am the Lead Cube here at SimplyCubed. I am a Starter, Entrepreneur and overall Techie who’s enthusiastic and obsessed with great service, simplicity, data-driven decision making, and automation. I think Heroku summed it up well when they said “Why have steps when none will do?”.
I founded SimplyCubed on the single belief that we, the world, need more Entrepreneurs, Starters, Go Getters, and Movers & Shakers to grow economy (all of them) and drive us towards prosperity. Gone are the days of the thriving huge corporate giants. While it’s definitely an adjustment for most and “too risky” for others I believe this is a good thing and overtime “they” will come around.
Why Now?
The reason is actually quite simple really. The current volatility in the market creates a great opportunity for the …
