How to write a great business plan

I read an old article by William Sahlman "How to write a Great business plan". It was published on July 1997 Harvard business review, almost 10 years ago. However, the essential part of a business plan has never been changed.
Here are some thoughts I learned from that article:

• Don't spend too much time to image the numbers, and ignore the information that really matters.
• Put break-even projections and positive figures into the back of plan.
• Great business plan contains four parts: the people who start and run the venture; the opportunity whether the business can grow and how fast it could be; the context of big picture; and the risk and reward assessment.
• The people is important since ideas are a dime a dozen; only execution skills count. The questions like who are they, what's their experience in industry, what's their relationship and reputation in industry, etc matters a lot.
• Investors prefer large and rapidly growing markets with a significatnt scale(that could be $50 million in annual revenues) within five years or as soon as possible.

There are a lot of shining points in this old-but-still-valuable articles. I would suggest whoever has a small business dream should read it. It will help you to understand what VCs are looking for although I haven't apply it and verify it in my real life.

Trick or Treat? Happy Halloween!

Here comes Halloween! My favorite pumpkin pie!
I love Halloween for all kinds of reasons. I love pumpkin pie all the time, yummy! I love those costume and decorations, although some of them look so disgusting. However, I do not like Trick-or-Treating approach, especially I hate to show it to kids.
Think about it : "Ding-dong!" someone is knocking your door. You come over, and see a cute boy or girl outside, wearing some cute costumes. How lovely they are! Then they start to ask:" Give me the candy! Otherwise, I'm going to play some tricks to make you regret it!" What? How come those lovely kids grow up so quickly? They do not know what's good for them. They will only mimic and learn from the adults. How sad it is to hear those lovely kids speaking like the adults. Everything needs to be exchanged. No free lunch. No free candy, of course. You can negotiate only if you have enough bargain chips.
I don't mind that creates a lot of retail than holiday itself. However, I do mind that creates a lot of "grown-up" kids. Let's just enjoy the delicious pies, sweet candies, and sweet neighbors without any contingency!

Bush, and "The Google"?

We should not surprise when we watch CNBC's interview with George Bush recently.
when the host asked Bush whether he ever googles anyone, Bush replied, "Occasionally. One of the things I’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps. It’s very interesting to see — I’ve forgot the name of the program — but you get the satellite, and you can — like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It remind me of where I wanna be sometimes."
Maybe he's too busy listening to some inaccurate intels, he doesn't have any time to care for the new technology. First it's "The Internets" and now it's "The Google".
Or he's really missing his long vacation at the Texas ranch, instead of staying at the White House with all nation. I also wish he was back at the ranch, I mean real back, not just for vacation.
Oh, please, you can forgot the name of the program, but you can not forgot "the earth" , our mother earth. Thinking about those issues like global warming, pollution, education, violence, stopping the political tactics please!

Sometimes I wonder how he got elected.... and elected again... This question bothers me a lot. I do not understand how the nation was thinking. I did not see the characteristics for a great leader at all. Maybe I was wrong. Even Hitler had a lot of followers.
Or maybe just a wrong job for him. Jim Collins mentioned it in his book "Good to Great": turning a company from good to great is not only people, it is the right people. If person stays at a wrong position which doesn't fit to his or her "skills", that's a disaster for whoever/whatever affected by that position.
Should those government officials gain some idea about technology or networks, and how any of it works? Knowing $ and manipulating gas price is not the whole life, please. I don't expect all old generation people to be tech savy at all, however, to be the president of United States, even 100-years-old-man has to understand what's THE Tech.
At least if everybody does not read and does not want to receive any emails, we do not need to worry about spam emails, isn't that a great news?

Relation is longer than company

Last night, I learned an important statement from my leadership class by Kimberly Wiefling:
Relation is longer than company...
It could have many different interpretations for different people, as we know, seeing the whole meaning of sentence is more than understanding the dictionary definitions for each words.
The comment comes from a story: Alice(anonymous) has worked for many companies in her past experiences, either she left the company, or company ship sink down in economic stream. However, she's made a lot of connections from her past companies and learned this lesson. Her follower want to go wherever she goes. What an amazing trust between them! Relationship could last long even after the work environment is no longer exist.
My first job in the valley ended abruptly. It was a small start-up company. We had a wonderful team with all the dreams and energy to accomplish them. At the end of one normal work day, our CEO just told us the company funding used up after we've achieved that day's task. "Team are dismissed." What a shocking news! Alright, company is gone, but the connections are still there.
Couple years later, I'm in deepest need of some extra help for my project. One of my old team members called me and mentioned he's looking for a new job. "Why don't you come for an interview this afternoon"? I said to him. He showed up 2 hours later after the call. We discussed for a while, I told him my perspective and plan ......By the end of day, I got the signature for offer letter and he signed in. Reunion in a new wonderful team, how great it is!
I left that company some times later. He has been promoted to manager position much faster than he expected or ever planned. Every time we meet, he's excited and thrilled by all the opportunities. I feel so happy for him, and happy for the fact that we can still sit together and enjoy the dinner after many years.
The same rule applies for reputation. We all know how small the world is, and how powerful people comments could be in industry.
I would not want to have dinner with that CEO in my future life, not because of the shocking new he brought. I'm offended by the way he brought the news after whole team whole day's hard work.
Of course, it doesn't intend to compromise company's benefit. Company goal should be higher than personal goal as long as you are still stay with the company, otherwise, you'd better change the culture, or find out a different place suiting your needs. I think it will be useful before I make any decision related to people. And keep it in mind, I will keep making friends and connections among colleagues in my future long career.

Mr. right or not?

Today I read a Chinese romance novel. It reminds me a old Chinese poem. The poem was narrated by a married woman. She finally meet her soul mate after she got married. The tradition Chinese culture does not allow women divorce their husband. She returned the pearl from her lover, and cried :What a pity that I didn`t meet you before I was married! (Forgive me for my pool transalation.) The poem itself is very beautiful! The novel is very touching.
还君明珠双泪垂，恨不相逢未嫁时。不是不曾心动，不是没有可能，只是有缘无份，情深缘浅，我们爱在不对的时间。


If you meet your Mr. Right at the right time, God bless you!
If you meet your Mr. Right at the wrong time, keep it in your deepest memory!
在对的时间遇上对的人，是神最美好的祝福！
在不对的时间遇上对的人，是记忆里最深的烙痕……

Which blog tool are you using?

Nowdays, a lot of feed tools are available.
I personally like bloglines and do not plan to move to other feed tools.
Today I just tried Technorati @ Technorati Profile

Which blog tool are you using? What's your favorite? Tell me please.

Intersting marketing strategy

I started to monitor a website woot since last night. It's a very interesting e-commence website. Woot offers a new discounted product every day with the product expiring each midnight, or sold out, whichever comes first. It attracted a big community of customers, and they discussed the woot deals on the site's community forums. Their price is competitive, similar to closeout price. Actually the sale may not be always as big as some other Columbus day sale deal. However, people used to come and took a look everyday, I'm one of those additives.
From philosophy point of view, this woot really catch the point. It gives people a new hope every day, "tomorrow is another day". Even if you missed today's deal, you can always expect something new coming out tomorrow. It won't give you more products once they sold out, which dramatically reduce the investigation possibility. If you do not make the decision immediately, you might lose it, and you know the price is generally acceptable, finally, you will be ended with a lot of junks at home. (oh, they may not be real junk, but you do not really need them at all.) I remembered a old survey result shows that 60% people changed the purchase idea after 1 hour of consideration. See, here you don't have luxury time to think it over, then change your minds. After the sell, we all know how low return rate for Internet purchase. People are too lazy to return unless the product is really bad or not fit at all. That's the same reason why subscribe model is success and widely adopted by most of companies, for instance, cable and phone companies, or old AOL subscription. There are hundreds of ways to keep you stay in subscribed, and renew automatically, laziness is one of the determine reasons.
Talking about the subscription model, I have to admit that I admire apple or Steve Jobs quite a lot, although my two mp3 players are never ipod. Nobody thinks the 99 cents selling strategy will success, but it did. I knew some friends spend almost a thousand dollar last year from itune store, and they never noticed it until they received their yearly credit card summary! Wow! Seamless browse and buy makes you unaware of the payment. Of course, Steve's marketing strategy is amazingly beat everybody else.
Go back to woot, they started a special event “Woot-Off” since yesterday, that's why I keep monitoring their site. During a period of unannounced length, each product is replaced by a new product within a few minutes after selling out, until the end of the Woot-Off, when a regular product is listed for the remainder of the day. Since the next item in the Woot-Off will not be listed till the current item is sold out, you get your new hope, and have to make the decision soon, since it can be sold out within 2 minutes. It's like the fireworks, one after another, you never know what's the next.
Today the biggest accomplishment I did is to resist the purchase temptation! I didn't buy any woots after 24 hours watching and more than 1 million dollars sell!

Friend indeed is friend in need?

I didn't feel very well last week. One of my best friend's life changed dramatically, but I didn't know it at all. We were very close in the past, kind of soul mate. I knew that something is going on, like she's not happy for a while, she wanna talk. I just ignored all signals I sensed without paying special attention. I promised to call her, but never did it.
Too busy, too tired after the work, job change and health issues are all lame excuses. I feel so shame of myself after I finally talked to her and found it out. Fortunately she already went through the down side, and started her new life. What if I could be a real friend, stay with her when she needs me years ago? I cannot forgive myself.
Life changes, everything is changing, how can we keep the friendship? Just pick the phone, talk to friends, send an email, chat online, whatever we can do before it's too late. A friend don't need any special events to stay in touch.