No matter how much you think about anything there is no way to know if what you are doing, or planning to do, is going to work. That’s part of the entrepreneurial risk every business has to live with.
However, up-front thinking can actually help mitigate risk and enable you to develop more relevant and actionable ideas, more quickly … especially if the thinking moves along a path that systematically becomes more in tune with your vision, goals and customer needs.
What thinking needs most is a complementary process that corrals the “blue sky” ideas, marshals them toward the desired goals and molds them into doable actions that drive growth.
Because, yes, sooner (rather than later) somebody has to sell something.
- Ken Tencer
May 18th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Generally I have to agree with you.
Yet, in the realm of Web 2.0, the idea of thinking and planning is, itself, too slow and risky.
While I’m planning there are others diminishing their risk an accelerate growth as well as brand loyalty by engaging their customers in conversatoins about needs, wants and values and then demonstrating that customers are being heard by creating products and services in response to the cusotmers’ clearly articulated demands.
With new media it’s now possible to reach many on a personal level, float a concept as if real taking care about the conditions on which delivery is offered, and obtain pre-orders before it’s been made.
It’s a seed, grow and Harvest approach predicted for the Web nearly ten years ago by Kevin Kelly, editor of Wired magazine who wrote books on ecology and organic business growth.
Hope this adds food for thought