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How to make money without charging a premium
TechCrunch points us to Sequoia Capital's elements of sustainable companies.
There’s clearly a lot of wisdom there, but I would take issue with just one of their points:
“Rich Customers: Target customers who will move fast and pay a premium for a unique offering.”
Of course it’s great to build a product or service for which you can charge a premium, but don’t forget that 4bn people on this planet live in poverty. There is enormous potential to help these people, via the vehicle of capitalism, to meet their most basic needs.
“Pick the one thing that is of burning importance to the customer then delight them with a compelling solution.”
How about clean water; food; shelter; medicine? If you don’t have these things I imagine you’d be fairly delighted with a solution that you could afford! You can’t charge a premium, but the market is enormous.
Here's my favourite example of the moment, the LifeStraw - a clean water filter within a drinking straw. Simple, cheap, and can you imagine the impact that this could have upon the world?
This is an area I want to learn more about. I've just started reading "Capitalism at the Crossroads: The Unlimited Business Opportunities in Solving the Worlds Most Difficult Problems"
If you want a quick hit of inspiration, check out Alex Steffen's TED talk I posted a little while back.
What cats and laser pointers tell us about how we use the web
Steve Krug (usability hero and author of Don't Make Me Think) points us to this article on the Wall Street Journal site about how an abundance of interesting and useful information online taps into a hard-wired human instinct that makes us crave more information. Sort of reminds of the robot Johnny 5 in Short Circuit. MORE INPUT!!
An easy way to add a little democracy: open up your board meetings
A very easy way to add a little more democracy to your company is to open up your board meetings. All you have to do is allocate one or two additional seats at the meeting for any employees to volunteer to come along. Here's the email I send round once a month:
Hi all, as you (hopefully!) already know, we try to run things here at NM in as transparent and participative a way as possible. One of the ways we achieve this is through having two ‘open seats’ at the monthly company board meeting for ANYONE on the team to come along. It’s a real opportunity to see how the company is run, and more importantly, to get involved in discussions and decisions.
If you’d like to come along then please send me an email by 14:00 tomorrow. If more than two people are interested I’ll give priority to people who haven’t been to a board meeting before. Over the coming months there will be opportunities for everyone to take part.
The contributions from the employees in the open seats are so valuable to the process of running the business because basic assumptions are questioned, and you get instant feedback from the people who will be affected by decisions. And it's motivating for the employees too because they get to see the big picture about how the company is run. Here's a snippet of an email I had from an employee after a board meeting:
It's very motivating to see the 'big picture' in terms of the company and where it is going (and feel like a part of that, of course!)
Hello
- I'm Tom, a co-founder and director at Nixon McInnes - the social media agency in Brighton.
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