Startups @ SMU: July 2007

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Great Entrepreneur Revelation

I only realized this only last week, but the reason for TYLER's year long stagnation is because we didn't have a plan.

I know what you're thinking: "How can you guys even start or run the damn business if you didn't have a plan?!"

We did a 60 page business plan for the LKY competition last year. What we didn't realize was that the business plan you use to raise money (or for a competition as the case may be) CANNOT be used as your actual business plan.

I felt something wasn't quite right after the competition was over. At the time I described the problem to one of our mentors as "we're back to business as usual". "Business as usual" is great if you're making a lot of money, not so great if you have yet to implement your grand plan for success.

Sure it sounds very "DUH!" in retrospect, but if you won 10,000 USD with your business plan, you wouldn't think you needed to write another one immediately.

What does this mean for you guys? Well you should go and think about what you're doing right now.
Are you:
a) operating on a plan with resources you haven't got?
b) targeting a market you haven't entered yet?

If the answer is "yes" to either, take some time and think about the practical business plan you can implement with the lemons you have now.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Vote for SMU Entrepreneur at SOE!

Alvin is nominated for SOE this year. You all better go and vote for him. Last year ya'll never vote for me. :(

Read the interview with Alvin here.

Vote for him here.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Possible consolidation of this blog with SMU Ventures

I was talking to Adeline and she mentioned that SMU Ventures (aka. the entreprenuership club) is interested to merge this blog with a Ventures blog for entreprenuership.

It would be great because:
1) More contributions from others instead of just my usual angsty posts.
2) Someone else can do the re-design and add pointless widgets like the Google news feed instead of me.

Rock on.