i right everybody welcome to another
blog slash hangout super excited to have
my friend and special guest Stephen
Kelly CEO of sage to talk to us today
about how to get your idea to make you
money it’s great to have you back
Stephen you’re you’re in your London
office again yeah I’m in London today
heading out to the US next week but I
just hear today really good to be here
haven’t really looking forward to this
one the big idea and how that kind of
makes money good I think this is the
first time we’ve done back-to-back
you’re actually in the same location
because you’re always but somewhere else
in the world so you got you got some
time to be at home yeah it’s good well
you know my my job like any
entrepreneurs out there with customers
colleagues connecting the two and that’s
where the magic happens so that means I
spend a lot of time out on the road cool
well we got a ton of questions coming in
but but before diving in on that I
wanted to get kind of your high-level
thoughts your single biggest piece of
advice for entrepreneurs we’re trying to
make money for their idea what would you
tell them
yeah actually I’m ironic is probably
counterintuitive
I’d say focus on your big idea think
about who you serve in what difference
is making to them and how it changes
lives and money follows I would always
say never kind of pursue this holy grail
of money because that’s not real always
kind of come back to what we said before
be passionate about big idea believe in
yourself really focus on the customer
value and you’ll build a great business
and we’ll get on to detail and some
examples of that during this glad I’m
sure but it’s really the key focus is
what what problem you’re really trying
to solve what value you’re gonna create
and then scale that up really kind of
come over any bumps in the road that you
have enormous resilience that takes we
know and and the great thing about the
idea the idea changes on the journey and
the more you test yet the better the
idea becomes so and and then you pursue
it you know we’ve talked about this so
many times but it’s so true yeah you
know pursue your passion and money is
the byproduct of the fruits of your
labor and you have delighted happy
customers
and a volunteer army out there I love it
and I love the word value because for me
you know business about providing value
the more value provide the more money
you’re gonna make you want to make a lot
of money provide a lot of value want to
make a lot of money quickly provide a
lot of value quickly that that’s the
endgame and I think you know starting
the business around something that
you’re also is valuable for you not just
a customer’s like you’re scratching your
own itch
like a lot of successful business has
been started that way and we’ll get into
the details because there’s tons of
questions coming in so so let’s dive in
the first one came from a pal velov at
pal the knob sorry said that everyone
how do you validate the idea before
spending time building it I think yeah
first of all come up with an idea and
it’s normally a pain point there’s a lot
of examples where you in your lives will
know a frustration of a consumer you
look at actually which Richard Branson
we’ve just announced emphasized summit
he’s an innovator easy disruptor he’s
probably one of the greatest worlds
entrepreneurs and he’s tried a lot of
ideas Sommerfeld and he’s left them
behind he’s fell fast and then moved
quickly but he always looks at kind of
where’s the gap in the market whether
it’s travel whether it’s music what is
it that we can create with our idea that
it’s gonna change the world and it comes
back to what value we created who we
serve in what problem we solve it and I
think that the key thing is there’s a
guy as well Richard Reid who I started a
big smoothie company called innocent and
he said you know all you need to do is
be seventy percent sure of your idea and
then just crack on and and get your idea
out there as a business because you will
evolve it and I think the worst thing
you can do is sort of analysis paralysis
try and come up with the best idea in
the world and because that’s not real
what you need to do is shape your ideas
efficiently go and meet friends me
buddies maybe angel investors what I’ve
been to invest in a lot of companies
people have said look I don’t want you
to invest today but I’ve got an idea I
might come back to you in six months
time when I’ve got a kind of couple of
trial customers and I ask you to invest
but today I just want to test drive the
and kind of you kind of had it around
you reshape it and you let me think
about it and then I’ll go away build a
business based on that so I kind of
think the key thing is think about those
key questions those trends like what’s
the audience you’re serving what value
you’re providing how are you gonna make
a difference and kind of what is the
thing that about your idea that is gonna
be life-changing and provide massive
value for hopefully millions of people I
love it I it’s never been easier to test
drive an idea with with services like
Kickstarter out there where all you need
is an idea or a prototype and then make
a video and tell people about it it’s
never been easier to go out and get
customers before actually having a
launch and then go into manufacturing I
just ordered a little nano drone that
fits in the palm of your hand and that
uses GPS to follow you around while
you’re like running or skiing or
whatever and it records it and then
uploads it to the cloud and I bought
that off of an IndieGoGo campaign and
they raised over three million dollars
to create this nano drone and they may
not have known if it was a good idea or
not they may have you know jumped in too
soon they may have had the test and
tweak along the way but this is
validation and now they have the money
they need you know that’s that’s all
marketing dollars that’s not even
getting investors into the business
they’re not giving up any equity and
they raised three million dollars in in
money to be able to build their product
and so it’s never been easier to use the
technology today to test drive and see
if there’s an appetite for your product
if not then maybe you need to tweak it
because rarely is the idea that you
start with where you end up there’s
always tweaks and changes and so having
market feedback as soon as possible so
I’m just creating a vacuum can be really
helpful
yeah I agree on Kickstarter you know
what they’ve raised two billion two
billion dollars ten ten million backers
now one hundred thousand projects and I
think you’re right but not only is
there’s never been a better time to have
an idea there’s never been a better idea
to do things like crowdfunding and then
the key thing is you need to own your
idea you need to and it comes back to
Evans tank life believe you you never
want to add the key kind of
responsibility for your idea but don’t
be kind of too precious about your idea
because
feedback especially from early customers
and improve your idea all the time
improve your product improve your
service because as Evan said I again I’m
an angel investor in a lot of companies
and what I’ve seen the first business
plan and some of these companies are
grown to like valuations over 100
million the first business plan and what
they ended up with was pretty radically
different but boy oh boy did they test
drive and find out what worked before
they really scaled it up and then they
iterated it all the time and I think the
world is perfectly tuned to that in
terms of speed of execution the speed of
now yeah you know you look at BMW they
started as an airplane manufacturing
company that’s why their logo is a
propeller still Lamborghini started off
in tractors yeah and then went into cars
when he bought a Ferrari and Ferrari
told him you know don’t tell me how to
make a car you stick to making tractors
and he said I’m gonna make a better car
than you’ve gone to Lamborghinis and so
it’s a great point and your business
will change my business has changed I
don’t know how much sage his business
has changed from the start point to
where it is now I know you just made
that huge announcement and you’re all in
on the cloud and you know business will
change from the original idea to to
where you end that point what will make
you successful yeah the other thing I
but you know relative to Sage they’ve
started in the eighties and the problem
we solved them was actually digitized in
accounting records on the first
generation of PC technology our personal
computers you know the radical
disruption in technology with four
billion people around the world with
smartphones means that all our apps are
coming out now mobile first and and
everything’s about real time accounting
but it’s way more than that it’s about
payments it’s about payroll about
integration and the movement of money so
entrepreneurs just don’t have to worry
about kind of their back office but the
next radical change we’re seeing is
something called the back office or the
front office where we’re smashing the
walls that kind of used to exist where
you had a little kind of back office
accounted the barman and bookkeepers and
accountants and then the sales guys at
the front end never talk to the guys in
the back office even in a company 20
people and I think technology today
radically changes that so just like
consumers as entrepreneurs we can run
our business
from the palm of our hand from
smartphones we have all the stuff around
our pipeline all the predictive
analytics about what that will drive in
terms of cash flow and you know you can
do stuff like within three seconds get
an increase on revolving credit and all
that stuff through clever technologies
like predictive analytics so again I
think there’s two things one is your big
idea and then always have your social
antenna out there to the radical shifts
both in technology and users and
preferences in your marketplace and the
people you serve to always innovate
yourself always kind of disrupt yourself
and the examples you quote like BMW and
these great companies around the world
really opens your eyes up to say that
the star idea is never always the
destination rise online was was asking
and you you acted a little bit who’s
asking how has sage improved their
products over the years Wow I think this
is just a relentless thing we measure
something called Net Promoter scores of
our customers the accountants harmless
and every time and actually me and the
whole of the ticket team actually
measure ourselves on our Net Promoter
scores so that drives a lot of
innovation that drives a lot of
connection with our customers and last
year just give you a statistic from us
in our R&D department we rolled out 250
significant product releases during the
fiscal year and everything kind of you
know you’d expect to be cloud based
probably third of our customers now are
on the cloud and exploiting the
opportunity through through having their
data up in the cloud also Mobile first
is a real kind of radical shift because
again ever new and I run our lives to
smartphones whether it’s an iPhone
Samsung or whatever we expect
entrepreneurs especially the Millennials
to be saying I just kind of want to run
my business like I run my life so
there’s a ton of innovation do we do
enough I’m always frustrated I want to
do more I want to do so much more but
boy oh boy we’re doing a lot I love it
all right let’s head to the next one
from M be shocked and I hope I
pronounced it
does the idea really matter or the way
you market it hey that’s a great
question I think the idea matters but
more importantly it’s kind of the
relentless execution started with what
is the value proposition and then go to
market with it and again with the
digital age you can get stuff out there
in weeks they used to take years a good
example actually of the shift in terms
of market and I do you probably saw the
film joy jailer at law and with joy
Mangano in terms of what happened there
was what was a mock company I used her
life savings actually 70% of our
customers used their life savings to
fund their businesses but there was a
pivotal moment when it just was not
moving I don’t know it was like on QVC
where we just couldn’t get any sales
away and she she was gonna get dropped
as a product on that channel and she
persuaded them to give her the
opportunity to pitch her own product and
like within the next 20 minutes they
sold 18,000 mops so just a product
matter the idea it was a great idea but
the sales and marketing was awesome and
you know you can market your product
better than anybody else and the
Internet is a channel and YouTube and
you know vines gives you a unique
opportunity to market your product
perfectly so that lady after 10 years
and sold 200 million dollars worth of
moths and you probably wouldn’t think
there’s a lot of innovation in the world
of mops but boy oh boy a hat tip and a
salute to joy it’s a lot of marks yeah
you know for me this is it’s both right
you need the idea and you need the
marketing if you were marketing a bad
idea it’s not going to take off right
especially in this era where
word-of-mouth is so fast and people can
talk about how bad your product is the
best market in the world won’t save a
terrible product the idea is also
important because if you have crappy
marketing then it’s not going to take
off either so you need both I think also
just even talked about the execution the
the creation of the product because a
lot of people have an idea but they
don’t actually then create that product
or creed that sir
just sits there then well one day I’m
gonna do this one day I’m gonna start
and then never actually start and so the
execution of actually creating the
product or creating the service and then
marketing it it’s both right it’s not
just one or the other you need to have
both if you’re gonna have success as
entrepreneur yeah it interests me on
yeah you know in terms of today I don’t
think it’s just where you have the idea
but I’d say now if you’ve got first
mover advantage you can create a
marketplace sometimes maybe 10-15 years
ago if you had first movement Vantage
you’d find your idea was too early for
the marketplace and then one of the big
guys would steal the idea and scale up
and you’d sit there thinking I had that
idea and they’d build a business out of
it today I think through the digital age
you can get an idea to market really
quickly and you can scale it up evolve
it improve it and build a really
scalable successful business nice next
Jared how can you prove your ideas have
worth it worth – even if you don’t have
a social fall in a very small one my
dears and solutions have a lot to offer
big brands but proving I’m a value is
tough any suggestions yeah it sounds
like the questioner is is thinking about
maybe pitching the idea to a big brand
to market it if that’s the strand I
think you’ve got to stand out so you
know if your drink’s company and you’ve
got a big idea you want to go along to
coca-cola to pitch an idea it’s probably
good to start the business get the idea
get some success and momentum but then
how do you kind of stand out from the
crowd one of the things is a different
idea that jumps out to his success but
again actually the company I mentioned
before innocent
they got acquired I think majority state
by coca-cola for over almost hundred
million dollars and that was an idea
around smoothies they spent a lot of
time months and months blending
different smoothies all organic really
appealing to help the health market that
was evolving there about five years ago
but they stood out so I think with your
idea if you’re doing a pitch to some of
these big companies and you want to have
their market your idea or you want to
sell you come
to them then you’ve got to stand out but
what I would argue is you’re much better
off putting your energy into your idea
of building a business rather than
worrying about selling your business
never worry about selling your business
run your business grow your business and
you’ll get a lot of people knocking on
your door to say I want you to be a
bigger part of a bigger family you know
a lot of I agree yes in the comments
that you like it um you know for me this
comes back to our last point of the idea
is not enough I have tons of ideas for
big companies right I could walk into
McDonald’s and come up with a hundred
ideas for them from how they treat
people to what’s on their menu to the
cleanliness of the place to their
website you know the idea is good but
it’s not enough you know is the are you
can you provide execution to these big
brands right McDonald’s is likely not
going to pay you for an idea or whatever
big brand that you want to try to
connect with it’s the idea plus the
execution if all you’re giving them is
the idea then they have to execute on it
they have a list of ideas to write you
know you have a list of 10,000 ideas
every big company has a list of 10,000
ideas – Stephen already mentioned today
about he wants to get more done right
he’s got a list of 10,000 ideas that he
wants to move sage in the right
direction and so the idea is not enough
the only the only caveat in terms of in
terms of that in my mind at least is if
you have a patent if you can patent the
idea and you can get it protected then
all you’re gonna go is sell the patent
to the company but then there has to be
something to Stevens Point before are
really unique really different something
that people will recognize but otherwise
if you can’t get it patented
then just selling an idea to a company
is not going to be enough you need to
have the execution yeah on that as well
I think it’s fair to say it’s all about
execution and never ever kind of just
stand still you got to win obey all the
time and also just sometimes you get
lucky or something happens in the
marketplace that kind of shifts the dial
and makes your idea irrelevant example a
company a great company but Sir customer
of ours called glowy in France back in
kind of 2013 they were watching kind of
marine biology and stuff and there’s
this really cool like given off farm by
creatures under sea just like a surreal
idea in the air
something called bioluminescence I can’t
even pronounce it but basically it’s so
kind of light that’s given off undersea
and then the French legislators brought
in some laws to stop shop Sampat Eisen
with big neo science and stuff like that
because it was bad for light pollution
and these guys that glowy developed this
kind of marine Lumino technology that’s
environmentally very sensitive and
compliant with the law and they built a
business where they’re lighting up kind
of advertising fur companies after dark
in France so legislation change of
regulations and and also change in terms
of market requirements just be aware and
always sensitive so not only is the idea
got to evolve you’ve got a market test
here but you and I know and this is so
true now in 2016 the market is so
different today than it was five years
ago and you know Evan maybe you give us
some example in terms of the gaming
industry and and everything people like
oculus you know how to add a bat but you
know virtual reality it’s changing so
quickly that you’ve got to be really
attuned to the opportunities yeah
there’s a follow-up question from Kim
Yuna who’s saying Steven that’s really
encouraging advice I love your idea
execution the ideas execution for me
execution is mine Mount Everest because
I’m starting out on my own so you know
what advice do you have for solo
entrepreneurs we’re having trouble
executing on their ideas because you
have to do everything from CEO to
janitor in their company yeah I think
you know if you work in out of your home
or whatever you’re an entrepreneur key
thing is structure discipline and
routine so kind of even get out of your
pajamas get downstairs get your
breakfast get up early get every day
just almost imagine you’re working in an
office creating a business from from the
get-go so and then from that I think
it’s all about the bass right execution
bias traction so come up with your idea
that’s good enough test drive it with
the community that you want to market
and sell it to you can do that you know
a number of different ways you could
gonna go down to the local coffee store
if it’s kind of consumer idea you could
do it with your friends but the most
important thing is get your idea in the
market
if it’s a product or a service start
actually getting your first customer and
it’s almost like Evan when I go back and
I was in a startup into California as an
angel investor there’s momentous times
especially if you’re on your own you
need to celebrate because sometimes you
can have down days it can be depressing
so you know it’s like the first time you
get your product to market celebrate it
you know open up a bottle of spring
water or something like that whatever
you want to do when you win your first
customer
celebrate it savor the moment and
remember those kind of masters when you
get your hundred customer when you get
you know a customer repeat referral
where they recommend you to other
customers celebrate these things because
that gives you great spirit it
galvanizes your energy and it reinforces
your ideas and then once you’ve got
customers I mean it’s all about test
drive in their feedback build feedback
into your model from day one so that
you’re always innovating you’re your
price almost like with people what I’d
say I’m Evan this is pretty crazy there
are people the minimum standard has got
to be better than the best of our
competitors and it’s the same with
products so as soon as you see
competitors trying to eat your lunch and
catch up you’ve got a leapfrog to the
next level and just think that will be
good enough for the next 90 days because
in 90 days time and guarantee you need
to leapfrog to the next level again it’s
just a constant relentless innovation I
love it I love I love the passion come
on it’s great thinking about you know
being a solo entrepreneur one thing that
I would encourage you to ask yourself
every day is what’s the highest value I
can bring to my business in carve out
time for what I call CEO time where
you’re not just putting out fires and
reacting but you’re purposely planning
what you want to do to grow your
business at least 90 minutes every day
of CEO time on big-picture stuff to help
you grow otherwise you’re just going to
stay on the treadmill and in terms of
celebrate I love that point I remember
when I was first starting out and it had
you know eaten beans for lunch every day
and making $300 a month when we had
something big happened we would go to
McDonald’s and we would celebrate with
french fries not of not a whole meal
because we didn’t have the budget
but just french fries and that was our
tradition of going out hey we got a new
sale let’s go get some french fries so
it doesn’t have to be a big expensive
party celebration you know just just
taking the time out to celebrate is
super valuable important because it’s
hard to stay motivated sometimes as an
entrepreneur and those little things can
make a big big impact I love it all
right well we have we have Julianne
calling in all right hey I love this hey
every night Julie and I love it when you
guys call in it’s kind of free way
interact it’s good fun Julianne tell us
tell us what you do and give us your
question absolutely so what I do I own a
dance studio kinda like Evan and yeah
move Desson Fitness right that’s kind of
our motto so excited company so maybe
you want limitations from no one but
recently what I started doing is is this
blog called sleep sumo calm right which
is pretty much just about helping
entrepreneurs sleep better because I
think you know I want to business myself
you know and I know as entrepreneurs is
extremely hard to sometimes shut it you
know shut it down right and say the case
it’s time to go to bed we can we can
fight tomorrow again you know so so
anyway that’s the blog that’s what it’s
about but my question to you is when do
you know when it’s time to kill a
product so that you’re making money and
maybe you have two or three making money
when it’s time to you know to say you
know what enough let’s just focus back
on on this versus the two or three that
we have I think it’s a great question
and I think that the reality is the best
sanity check is to sit in the shoes of
the customer and go and you know you
should have pick up the phone social
media check how many customers you know
it comes back to what Evan says what is
the value that they derive it from your
product or service how is it changing
their lives how is it creating benefits
how’s it saving them time how does it
make them feel better all those sort of
things you’ll know pretty quickly when
you talk to your customers is it a
product failure issue or idea failure or
is it actually if I tweak it a little
bit I could have the right answer
and then you know what the great thing
is if you actually said to the customer
how about if I came back to you in 30
days time and I tweaked it to do what
you’re telling me you need would you be
interested and they were always going to
say yeah they were always going to back
you because also you’ve got a kind of
relationship with them so I think it’s a
great question what I would advocate
though is you kind of when you do we’ve
all failed let’s be honest we’ve all
felt that entrepreneurs I mentioned by
Richard Branson is coming to save some
it loads of product failures company
failures but you know he he’s awesome
because he’s done so many projects what
he’s been really smart and he started
initially in music and then he’s got a
massive travel company Virgin Atlantic
he’s got all these other businesses
Virgin Money what he did really well was
test the market go out there kill the
businesses that weren’t going to make it
and scale up the businesses that were in
the products it was and I think you’ve
got to trust your instincts I think
there’s a thing Evan says about belief
but as entrepreneurs some days are dark
days let’s be honest and you need to
kind of give yourself a bit of spiritual
uplifting and that’s when you go back
and check in with your customers because
yeah when you actually talk to your
customers they’re the greatest people on
the planet and they they want you to be
successful they’re really rooting for
you so you’ll find out very quickly from
those customer conversations whether
it’s a kill or it’s an enhance innovate
and adapt Julie Oster me for me it would
be when you lose your passion in what
you’re doing because the stevens point
about talking to people and getting
feedback and having to twist your and
tweak your offering when you lose the
passion for that project you’re not
going to be willing to put in the hours
anymore you’re not gonna be willing to
modify it and change it and put in the
work anymore and so if you are though
like if you still love this thing this
is still your baby you’re still excited
about it you know the dance thing or
something else you’re talking about then
you’ll find a way to make it work like
with more hustle you know what you have
may not work great yet but with more
tweaking and more hustle be able to make
it work but if you don’t have the
passion you’re gonna quit and so that’s
when you give it up the flip side as
well as their
who are making money and lose a passion
in their business and they get bored and
that’s how to the time to sell your
company right it has value if you’re not
passion about anymore it’s just gonna
flatline and then start to decrease and
a lot of people think well that’s
passive income for me so I should keep
it but really the guts of time go sell
it move on to something else that you
are excited about so for me as long as
I’m excited by something as long as I
believe in it then I’m doing it if not
then move on to something else and
everything that you put in has been kind
of sunk cost you’ve grown you’ve learned
you’ve gotten better and now you know
focus on the future
awesome so do you do you actually guys
write down like okay this is some of the
stuff that I’ve learned I’m okay with
just deciding that I’m although I might
still be making money from it right I
feel like it’s not necessarily scaling
or growing then I’m okay I’m just gonna
kind of just journal this is what I’ve
learned from it and just put it on the
Shelf perhaps and just like move on to
the next step
yeah I think there’s a couple of things
in terms of what I say which is a bit
harsh actually but it’s true there’s
only two types of companies in the world
two types of businesses there’s growing
a successful businesses and there’s
dying businesses the only exception that
is lifestyle businesses and some folks
who might be out there would just say
you know I’m happy I’ve got a great
work-life balance
I run a lifestyle business it kind of
flatlines on revenues it gives me a good
lifestyle I play golf or I dance or
whatever I want to do three days a week
and that’s okay but I think there’s sort
of people the entrepreneurs in the world
we’ve come from and the people who have
a big idea and what it changed the world
were low to passion to be have
exponentially growing businesses so
within that as I think you could look
what you know if you’re down the road of
three or four years you could say
actually I’ve got a good business I’ll
use as a funding vehicle to actually do
my big idea and one of the businesses
are actually want businesses I’ve
invested in a great arm business of
called cloud apps they’ve reinvented
themselves three or four times and
they’ve got good customers they’ve done
a good job but they plateau with one
product they use that as a cash vehicle
to fund their next big idea and they
started with sustainability then they
started with really cool stuff around
kind of gaming engagement and then they
started with all the stuff around a lot
of big companies use these products
called customer relationship management
but it’s really hard to get people to
use those so they provided all these
kind of incentives and gaming and fun
things to actually really make it a lot
more fun than them being in the
workplace so just as an example I think
if you’ve got a great product great
customers you know double down and go
through it but that could also spawn the
opportunity to have other ideas you know
like Evan said we probably three of us
could come up with twenty different
ideas so let’s pick the best one let’s
start that but you want to build a
company that could do three or four
ideas if they’re related ideas that
becomes really powerful in the venture
capital world we would call them
gazelles those are the high-growth you
know lots of opportunities Boeing fast
and then the walking wounded and the
walking wounded you just like hobbling
along but it never actually takes off
right and as long as your focus on that
walk and wound the business you can
never be a gazelle and so if you’ve
learned what you need to learn from it
then then shut it down or sell it or
give it to somebody else and focus on
the next thing that you can be a gazelle
with awesome well thank you so much for
having me all right you’re like we move
thank you hey Evan I love that it’s
great when we get folks on it’s really
good that’s great yeah not everybody’s
set up popular but it was good okay next
one is from Maria how do you approach
the company or manufacturer without them
taking your idea how do you protect
yourself from this yes great question so
I’m kind of one is if you can go to
market and you can manufacture the
product yourself that’d be great if
that’s not possible and and it requires
a significant capital investment then I
think it’s definitely worth looking if
is a unique idea with intellectual
property look at it patterning you know
I think great tehnology companies
typically apply for patents and and then
it’s all about speed because I think in
reality if I see an entrepreneur and
they do a pitch to me and they’ve got a
good
and they’ve got a real focus on
execution then effectively your backup
and it does come a lot about the belief
the passion and the execution but if
you’ve got the opportunity obviously
file a patent and make sure you kind of
got a got a safety net there safety
valve
yeah I agree patent is the way to go I
mean patents can be expensive you can do
a provisional patent which gives you
protection for a short amount of time
and then you can decide whether you want
to do the patent the full-blown patent
that you have to have you know you have
to pay for a patent in every country
that you want to have it protected every
year on top of the legal fees to kind of
get it set up so it can be expensive but
it gives you in if you get a provisional
patent it gives you a little bit of
space to play with the see if the idea
can can work or not I’d also like you’re
worried about a manufacturer taking the
idea I I believe in building strong
relations with my suppliers and I would
I wouldn’t just give this to any guy who
is the lowest cost provider to make this
idea for you I want to work with the
company that likes what I’m doing we get
we have similar values wants to be part
of my growth and my success and I
wouldn’t worry as much about them could
potentially ripping off my idea so you
can have the legal protection if that
happens with the patent but I think also
maybe doing a little more due diligence
upfront to find partners that you want
to work with you know Sage has their
accounting network and they work with
you know they’re their customers might
be small businesses entrepreneurs who
are growing their companies but the
accountants then refer a lot of the
customers in and they do a ton of work
say chose an insane amount of work
trying to work with accountants and
recognize them as as key partners and so
I try to find that kind of connection to
where you feel like you’re working
side-by-side and it’s not just a
transactional relationship
yeah jayven one one on say we took
various on other labs but find companies
and partners and suppliers and
manufacturers who share your your values
I think it’s really important and part
of the values you want to work with is
is integrity and Trust because I think
that that’s in companies with a half a
companies you want to work with
and that you’ll be successful with so I
you know if you know a company a
manufacturer has bad ethics don’t go
there just don’t don’t don’t compromise
yourself don’t never sell your soul so
focus on the the individuals with our
high ethics if you’re pitching good at
some of these there’s so many both web
base and real time pitching operations
there’s something tomorrow our theme is
called hashtag release IT where 10
companies go along and pitch their ideas
travel companies there who instead of
say what do you want they say how much
money you got and they’ll come up with
kind of despo k– packages search
through the web around what will fit
your needs so there’s loads of ways for
you to get the idea I think again
traditionally it’s very binary about
kind of its we’ve got a big capital
investment you go to manufactures I
think in today’s world there’s much
cleverer ways to actually start your
business get your idea to market and
then scale it up but most of all I’d
always say Evan you know we’re the same
in this I think always have companies
you work with that share your values
values and culture are really
fundamental I love it
next one coming in from cuchara my son
is very creative and intelligent has
come up with amazing ideas and I know
we’re not out there how do you go about
getting the money to do this
so trying to support an entrepreneurial
son what advice would you give I love
that I’ve set them up in the garage and
I’d say let’s let’s let’s pick your top
ten ideas let’s get a few your buddies
in in terms of you know maybe sort of
simulate customers sort of focus groups
pick pick one just pick one don’t try
and you know spread yourself too thin li
and then go to market with that idea and
then you can always scale up or come
back to the second idea I think in terms
of if you need finance to start it you
know 70% of our customers actually use
their own life savings or remor which
they’re at their homes that it’s a good
way you know if you really have passion
about your business is to back it with
some of your own kind of life savings
but all set is a great idea then there’s
fo
around the world people I have earned me
or your friendship group who are
prepared to invest a little bit in the
idea now I’ll give you an example
another guy I invested in about 12 years
ago called Mike he had so much energy so
much passion I honestly I wasn’t sure
about the idea but I I backed the
individual and I said no you’re asking
like four hundred thousand or something
like that I said I’ll give you twenty
five thousand if we hit these or you go
away and hit these kind of milestones in
the next six months I’m happy to double
down with you but I’m not sure about the
idea and it’s kind of when you get
people like that and I that was me in
that case it it keeps you honest so it
actually says that yeah I’ve got to hit
these kind of goals I’ve got to make
these 90-day goals 180 day goals and if
I do there’s a number of customers
reference ability of those customers all
those sort of things then you’re going
to attract money honestly
it’s like not only never worry about
making money but also never chase money
to fund your business because great
businesses will have a wealth of
investors out there was just making sure
you find them through the best channels
and sequence of time when you need them
but for your son setting them up near
garage find his best idea get it to
market quickly back a scale it up and
make sure it’s all focused on providing
value so you know I’d support him
totally yeah and I would say don’t let
the lack of money be the restriction
because it’s not because right now you
want to invest your hustle your energy
your your ideas your enthusiasm I like I
like I love you do picking one idea and
setting it up in your garage or basement
or tree house or whatever and just start
and give him the motivation
encouragement that you believe in his
ideas even if you know he hasn’t had
success yet in the marketplace my
parents did that with me when I was
selling baseball cards you know 12 years
old 13 years old setting up shop on my
driveway selling baseball cards every
weekend and that taught me a lot of the
entrepreneurial hustle and skills and
maybe your son’s ideas were bigger than
that
and that’s great but you don’t you don’t
need money yet to start it go out and
get customers yet I get some
feedback from the market the people like
this and if you really need it then you
can go launch a Kickstarter campaign
once you’ve created your idea once you
have some momentum once you know what
people want and then before you go I
hate the idea of luxury mortgaging your
house to bet on an idea and then it
doesn’t work that it’s just a big maybe
that’s my own thing I’m just I’m so
scared of entrepreneurs to do that
there’s always a smaller way to get
started you don’t need to fill your
basement with 5000 t-shirts you can go
to teespring and do it one at a time and
yes it’s not as profitable but you can
prove that it works like just prove that
you can sell one thing before you go out
and start spending a lot of money and
investing you know your life savings or
his life savings into it or going on the
credit card I know that’s how
entrepreneurs do it and it just scares
me because I don’t want you to make a
financial decision that then impacts you
for the you know potentially the rest of
your life
so don’t let money be the limiting
factor just put your energy your heart
your hustle into a go get some customers
get feedback on the idea make a
prototype and get get some order so it
may not be as fast as you want to grow
it but there’s nothing wrong with
bootstrapping a business and seeing
success every step along the way yeah
even some of the phrases I use around
here is kind of we want to run some you
want to run a bootstrap business you run
it on fumes
you really do because if you throw money
a business you’ve seen in loads of BC
back businesses they just waste millions
and tens or hundreds of millions of
dollars if you actually running on fumes
and focus on what do we need to do to
provide value for customers and start
with the first few customers and a lot
of businesses actually I’ve invested in
the customers have funded the businesses
and then there’s a second way where they
really need to scale up and then when
they do that the other things we kind of
say around here is always keep a chair
in every meeting free for a customer and
ask you so I closed in brown called Ted
Baker they said what is Ted one well
then in Ted’s a fictional character but
he the brand is Ted Baker and he’s a
fictional character they said what would
tell what would the customer how would
the customer feel about you know that
design or that that lapel oh you know so
you’re always putting yourself in the
shoes of the customer if you do that
and you really kind of other words like
treat the company’s money as if it’s
your own because it is and then really
think where would I invest that extra $1
and and think one dollar at a time $10 a
$500 time because the worst thing you
can do honestly is give your shown a lot
of money because you might not see him
you might go traveling around the world
for the next year but if you wants to
really grow his business the smart thing
to do is say let’s take one idea what
would it take to win the first customer
let’s go and do that scale it up to the
next hundred stay connected to those
customers to get feedback innovate
improve the product and then when you’re
confident its scalable think about the
next idea yeah I love it it’s a classic
give a man a fish or teach him how to
fish Yeah right like the best investment
you can make into your Sinus to teach
him how to fish instead of giving in the
fish I love it okay Irene I’m selling
and recommending health beauty and
weight management products how do I make
it make money because it’s picking up
rather slowly yeah and I guess in this
world is that you could argue it’s a
crowded market so I think the first
thing you probably you’ve got to think
about back to what we talked about you
know what’s the need you serving why is
it different where’s the value and how
you differentiate it from all the other
noisy products out there so and then I
think fundamentally it comes back to
find a really strong reference group of
customers that you can and I guess
you’re selling your product through the
internet and how you actually once
you’ve established a good customer base
start expanding that customer base so it
might be things like loyalty it might be
things I think with that sort of product
as well you probably need a broader
offering in terms of health Beauty not
just the product but the whole kind of
lifestyle so you might kind of feature
stuff on your website around lifestyle
health beauty even back to sleep and
stuff like that so you’ve got to provide
more value than just the product to
stand out and then the key thing with
all in a crowded noisy marketplace where
there’s a sea of products you’ve got a
absent
you always think how I stand there how
do I differentiate how do people come to
my brand because it is special unique
and it really meets their needs
yeah the tag on what Steve was saying I
always try to focus on what your story
is why is it so interesting for you did
this help you like have you lost weight
using these things do you feel more
healthy you’re beautiful because of
using it I think a lot of people jump in
the industry just saying they can make a
lot of money and they’ve never actually
used the products and it would never
actually recommend it to their friends
that’s not something like if you if you
don’t believe in your product and you
don’t use it and have insane success
with it you can’t expect to get results
selling it and so I think just even this
point about there’s so many different
products on the market the thing that
will make you stand out is your story
and why you’re so passionate about it
and I would use that to open up doors
and instead of kind of target one at a
time at a time at a time I’d be looking
at who can i partner with to reach my
customers so instead of I can find
someone who has a thousand customers
that I can talk to them instead of one
at a time and it also be try to get to
the media I have stories written about
me what if my story like the media is
always they always want story so give
them a good story they’re not gonna
write about your new product that was
just launched they care about the human
side of it and so those two things I
think could be really helpful if you
have a really powerful story to tell hey
Evan you can’t believe it was two days
ago
up a big operation we’ve got a new cast
of about 1800 people we’ve got an
entrepreneur a lady called Nikki got in
and we’re celebrating International
Women’s Day on women in technology we
started loads of stuff we’re doing a big
thing next month for female
entrepreneurs to come in and do pitches
and improve their pictures and get fund
and you get mentoring all those of this
but there is why I’m telling you this
Nikki got she just told her story she
told us about you know the days when it
was deeply depressing and she’s build an
awesome business in event management and
she personalized it completely to her
the adversities she’s faced how she’s
overcome them and you know it was
inspirational it was probably about 400
of our colleagues there and
for a moment there wasn’t a dry eye in
the house honestly and it was less about
the product it was more about the story
and it was about the emotional
connection and I think what you’re doing
for your product in this instance is
changing lives you know you if it’s
around weight loss well-being avoiding
depression all those sort of things it’s
really connecting individuals with a
life that they may not have even known
as possible and if you can bring them
the narrative around your own story and
the beauty of that and how’s it impacted
you and maybe friends and it’s they’re
happy your customers who have actually
had huge success and completely
reimagine themselves and rebuilt their
own self-esteem then I think that’s
awesome and and you could feature that
on your website because I think it is a
very personal story and it’s very
emotional of it I love it next question
is kind of similar the difference here
is though I says the customers find it
Costas isn’t the same industry but he’s
finding a the biggest rejection from
customers is cost it’s too costly so how
does it pass the this is too expensive
objection in in selling his idea yeah
it’s great I think it comes back to what
we said what is the value typically you
know if customer says too costly they’re
probably saying there’s something else
we used to call it there’s a hidden
objection rarely do customers if you’ve
got it which all about ideas we’re not
just producing widgets if you’ve got an
idea it’s probably gonna be unique it’s
gonna solve a real pain point for
consumers or businesses and it’s gonna
either save them bucket loads of cash
it’s gonna save a lot of time it’s gonna
improve their well-being there’s got to
be something that just jumps out in
terms of improving their whole user
experience of your product or service
and and that’s you know I’m not going to
say it’s priceless
but but people will drive value and cost
becomes a second consideration so if
you’re getting hit by costs and you have
what you consider to be a unique
proposition to a problem you’re trying
to solve your customers
then I’d say we’re probably not focusing
enough on the value and really
accentuated the value of what you’ve
provided because if they get the value
and how it makes a difference to their
lives then cost is always a secondary
factor yeah I think the biggest thing is
people don’t know why you’re different
you know prices always it’s always a one
of the concerns there are very few
people said I don’t care about price
right price is always a concern but it’s
almost never the only concern because
they want some kind of value in return
but if I can’t tell the difference
between you and somebody else I’m gonna
go with the cheapest one right you know
I went to Tim Hortons this morning to
get a coffee because I liked him Hortons
you know I use sage software because I
like sage right and so you know if
people cannot tell that this is your job
to help me understand the difference
between what you’re offering and
everything else are in the market
because if I can’t make that connection
then I’m just gonna go for the cheapest
option yeah and it could be you know if
you’re trying to build a brand like Tim
Hall it’s a great example I’d always go
to my local coffee provider and I’d
never go to Starbucks why because I like
to go in a local guy who gets up every
morning at 5 o’clock and builds you know
builds their dreams and just use their
passions so I declare yeah I’m put a
prejudice I don’t want to go to the big
multinational guys I want to get the
little guys all our all our suppliers
for Sage they’re all the small and
medium businesses will actively not go
to the big guys so do we consider that
we always get the lowest cost no but we
think we get quality relationships and
great products and services from
companies we deal with so I think so it
kind of comes back to Evans point but it
might be that you focused on the wrong
community is selling to if they don’t
get the value they don’t get the
differentiation of what the magic you
can provide then obviously kind of pitch
it differently first of all but if they
still don’t get it
and it’s just purely a cosplay then
they’re missing the value and you you
probably want to move on to the next
idea yeah or the next customer right
like yeah I know ideal customers
absolutely you can be what customers are
just too cheap so let’s move on there’s
other customers who who would be well
to pay you if you provide in the volume
KRC Katie what’s the best way to
monetize a website my brother has just
set up a website that provides rolling
tennis coverage
he’s been frustrated at the BBC sport as
very patchy tennis coverage and other
sports as a knock on BBC here
that’s great content how can he turn it
into a viable business so he’s trying to
create this website talking about tennis
upset at the BBC how does he make it
into a business so I think he probably
again it comes back to a little bit
having differentiate ourselves there’s a
lot of content on the web I think
there’s about four billion hits on
YouTube every every day it’s just crazy
so again well why is this different and
then how are we attract the inbound how
do we actually get ourselves so when
people search on tennis content we
actually pop up on the Google search and
although some of its so the first thing
is to have brilliant content so question
what what what mark will be trying to
serve what’s our big idea if our big
idea is to give incredible tennis
content and maybe some added value
around commentary or insight or you know
what why you know what what’s the view
on share up over at the moment and all
the kind of stuff in the news around
drugs totally different angle you
wouldn’t get that from the BBC up are
from the BBC News but you wouldn’t get
it from kind of the sports commentary
piece so what is the angle what is the
difference and then build on that and
then obviously I think through the
websites all about creating the
volunteer army get it to go viral get
loads of fun and the other thing you
could do I think you’ve got to make
stuff on the web pretty fun these days
so run competitions run surveys if
you’re going off to Flushing Meadow is
you going off to Wimbledon get a big
community build a community build that
volunteer army of people who love tennis
as much as you do and give them
something different give them another
angle get them engaged through
competition surveys maybe get them a
couple of tickets to Flushing Meadows if
they do amazing stuff for you thank you
creativity to act when I say in terms of
website business models one is you’re
gonna go mass market you want to get
tons of you know millions of views
you’re gonna then sell average
and have partnerships and sponsorships
on your site because they’re buying the
eyeballs the second way is that you’re
building an intimate community where
they know you like you trust you and
then you’re gonna sell premium access to
stuff if you access the content or your
ideas or your opinions or gear you know
swag whatever it is because they are are
tagged to your brain you can do both you
can be challenging but typically the
websites that start do one first so
either I’m gonna go big mark and get
millions of people in still advertising
or I’m going to focus on a really niche
play and have a really loyal community
and then start selling them products so
two different kinds of models play
around see was more in line with what he
wants to do hey just a crazy one I Evan
and it’s not related it is related to
this but a wider point and like crazy
believes the leave belief I live in a
tennis players
yeah I actually Roger Federer met him in
Dubai the nicest person you could ever
ever me now if I was building this
website around tennis content I would
never believe I could walk up to read
Roger Federer pull out a microphone or
an iPhone and just take a selfie or do
an interview with him or Djokovic these
guys are really nice guys you know
Serena whips so maybe you do crazy stuff
maybe you turn up at Flushing Meadows
when they’re doing a practice session at
7:00 in the morning
and maybe you say hey Serena can I just
have 30 seconds with you I’ve got to ask
this real burning question then post it
yeah just be disruptive do different
stuff do do stuff that no one would ever
think of so but but my point is believe
you will in your head we all have it we
all have these kind of voices tell us we
can’t do that we can’t go and talk to
these famous people they’re
unapproachable they’ve got 50,000
security guards they come in bulletproof
limousines and they get dropped off and
no they don’t they’re just normal people
they were just like you and I you know
they’re no different just because they
play tennis and there are hundreds of
billions of dollars they’re still normal
people and they still love fans they
love their fans so if you’re a fan you
love them just go up and get selfies
publish it on your website do something
different do something again to stand
out if
you can get interviews with them and
then you can build up a following you
know I kind of think around this sport
series it’s just like bloggers and
vloggers they’ve come from nowhere in
five years and now they’ve got massive
followings that’s what you need to
aspire to when I was 12 years old 12 and
13 the Blue Jays had won the World
Series so they were like the height of
baseball stardom and I would go to
Florida I would they do their spring
training that’s part of why I go to
Orlando a year and I would sit in the
parking lots as they showed up to spring
training and and talk to them and take
pictures with them we didn’t have
cameras you know cell phone cameras back
then but I would take pictures or get
them to autograph their cards and
baseballs and super coachable if you
just likes even sadly put in the effort
go out and and try to make contact with
them it it’s a lot easier than you think
and not many people are willing to put
in the effort to go and do it Rishi I’ve
been a Steven he’s back he’s back with a
cup what’s one of the first ideas to
make money from and what did you learn
from that first idea I made money from
was actually when I when I was about 16
I had about five different jobs and you
know two in hotels we deliver papers but
one of the ideas I made money from was
actually with a hotel I took so I
checked this out with the owner and they
said some of the stuff that they didn’t
actually in terms of the food and all
the goodies that they had for their
customers if they had a quiet season
they said I was okay to just take out
and if I could resell them that’s fine
because otherwise they were just gonna
throw it away so there’s little bit of
market was a seaside town so we just set
ourselves up on the seafront and just
sell stuff and you know how about you
you you create enough money to go on to
the next idea so I just think it was
allowed to get out there there’s loads
of opportunities and for me personally
at 16 that was a moment where I kind of
knew it’s a great way did I do it well
no it was our good salesman you know all
these sort
things but it’s a great start from that
you know those little acorns great oak
trees get formed I love it my very first
business venture was when I was five I
convinced my three-year-old little
sister to to paint pictures with me and
we went around the neighborhood and
tried to sell them and we sold one to
our neighbor for ten cents I had my
first sale and I guess I just learned
that from that you’ll create something
and then go out in and market it and in
all throughout school I had different
businesses none of them ever did
insanely well but you’re learning you’re
getting the hustle skills you’re
understanding the salesmanship I
baseball cards I did for a long time
throughout high school and at the end of
grade school and I would make more money
at a garage sale than the rest of my
family combined and when they were
selling couches and whatever I was
seldom my baseball cards and they could
understand how a piece of paper you know
piece of cardboard would sell for $40 or
$60 or $100 and how I was making more
money than them at like 10 12 years old
doing garage sales and so I think I
think just taking idea I think as kids
were willing to work may be willing to
take more risk we’re willing to just try
stuff we’re not as afraid of failure as
when we get older and so yeah I’ll go
dog knock door to door and ask somebody
to try to sell my art but imagine doing
that now people would have like a heart
attack
who would door to door some AR what if
they rejected what if they don’t like it
where I don’t know why that kind of that
creativity in that self-confidence maybe
or I guess as much as caring about other
people’s opinions would that become so
strong that it crushes our will and so I
think as an entrepreneur you those are
super important lessons we to learn
young so that it was able to help me
grow to the person I am now yeah and you
get you know as and we’ve all had it we
you get knocks you get people who say no
you get people turn you crazy but that’s
why you have to believe in your idea and
that gives you such tremendous
you you gotta have a few not to you know
if you’re an actor or act or you go off
and you do a thousand auditions you can
probably get no callbacks but that gives
you tremendous emotional resilience and
and as entrepreneurs you know it’s not
life’s not all sunshine it’s all about
taking the knocks taking the punches
being a ring with Mike Tyson getting
thrown out onto the gangplanks getting
back in there just getting out and
believe in yourself believe in your idea
and I think it’s kids actually you’re
right Evan just there are way more
emotional resilience because they just
step back and they just just love it and
they’re it’s fun and I think back to the
business idea it’s always got to be fun
so you’ve got your idea you believe in
it you’re passionate about it it’s fun
every day and when the fun goes out of
it that’s when you need to change what
you’re doing but one you’ve got fun
you’ve got belief you’ve got tremendous
emotional resilience and therefore you
can absolutely be successful I love it
that’s the shirt of the day this is the
little man so it’s triumph over the
little man and that the little man is
the hater the hater who just is knocking
on your business and telling you all the
reasons why it’s not gonna work out and
rise online was on this call designed
this shirt so I like the message of the
day trying for the little man it’s great
see we’re already bumping up against the
clock thank you so much for the time and
you have a final message for the
audience and maybe how they can reach
you as well or how they can learn more
about Sage yeah on Twitter is handle s
Kelly see ya I kind of think the the
thing we sort of always talk about is
either and money I think the thing I’d
leave you with is follow your dreams
again come up with an idea where you’re
really gonna really change the lives of
people and think about how it does that
for people and focus on the value and
their money follows you know if you look
at the branches you look at Oprah
Winfrey all these great people they all
say they never ever thought about making
money they thought of the idea and they
thought about how it changed the world
and how it would make the world better
for the community of people they serve
and then obviously money follows that
and
and and you know comes back to the
message evan gives every time is believe
believe believe and beach hugely
resilient because with the idea once you
translate it you get a lot of momentum
you’re gonna have a great business and
you’re gonna be you’re gonna be
absolutely celebrating your successes i
love it will see would thank you so much
for joining us again thank you all guys
for watching and we will see you next
month
great step guys thanks very much thanks
Evan
blog slash hangout super excited to have
my friend and special guest Stephen
Kelly CEO of sage to talk to us today
about how to get your idea to make you
money it’s great to have you back
Stephen you’re you’re in your London
office again yeah I’m in London today
heading out to the US next week but I
just hear today really good to be here
haven’t really looking forward to this
one the big idea and how that kind of
makes money good I think this is the
first time we’ve done back-to-back
you’re actually in the same location
because you’re always but somewhere else
in the world so you got you got some
time to be at home yeah it’s good well
you know my my job like any
entrepreneurs out there with customers
colleagues connecting the two and that’s
where the magic happens so that means I
spend a lot of time out on the road cool
well we got a ton of questions coming in
but but before diving in on that I
wanted to get kind of your high-level
thoughts your single biggest piece of
advice for entrepreneurs we’re trying to
make money for their idea what would you
tell them
yeah actually I’m ironic is probably
counterintuitive
I’d say focus on your big idea think
about who you serve in what difference
is making to them and how it changes
lives and money follows I would always
say never kind of pursue this holy grail
of money because that’s not real always
kind of come back to what we said before
be passionate about big idea believe in
yourself really focus on the customer
value and you’ll build a great business
and we’ll get on to detail and some
examples of that during this glad I’m
sure but it’s really the key focus is
what what problem you’re really trying
to solve what value you’re gonna create
and then scale that up really kind of
come over any bumps in the road that you
have enormous resilience that takes we
know and and the great thing about the
idea the idea changes on the journey and
the more you test yet the better the
idea becomes so and and then you pursue
it you know we’ve talked about this so
many times but it’s so true yeah you
know pursue your passion and money is
the byproduct of the fruits of your
labor and you have delighted happy
customers
and a volunteer army out there I love it
and I love the word value because for me
you know business about providing value
the more value provide the more money
you’re gonna make you want to make a lot
of money provide a lot of value want to
make a lot of money quickly provide a
lot of value quickly that that’s the
endgame and I think you know starting
the business around something that
you’re also is valuable for you not just
a customer’s like you’re scratching your
own itch
like a lot of successful business has
been started that way and we’ll get into
the details because there’s tons of
questions coming in so so let’s dive in
the first one came from a pal velov at
pal the knob sorry said that everyone
how do you validate the idea before
spending time building it I think yeah
first of all come up with an idea and
it’s normally a pain point there’s a lot
of examples where you in your lives will
know a frustration of a consumer you
look at actually which Richard Branson
we’ve just announced emphasized summit
he’s an innovator easy disruptor he’s
probably one of the greatest worlds
entrepreneurs and he’s tried a lot of
ideas Sommerfeld and he’s left them
behind he’s fell fast and then moved
quickly but he always looks at kind of
where’s the gap in the market whether
it’s travel whether it’s music what is
it that we can create with our idea that
it’s gonna change the world and it comes
back to what value we created who we
serve in what problem we solve it and I
think that the key thing is there’s a
guy as well Richard Reid who I started a
big smoothie company called innocent and
he said you know all you need to do is
be seventy percent sure of your idea and
then just crack on and and get your idea
out there as a business because you will
evolve it and I think the worst thing
you can do is sort of analysis paralysis
try and come up with the best idea in
the world and because that’s not real
what you need to do is shape your ideas
efficiently go and meet friends me
buddies maybe angel investors what I’ve
been to invest in a lot of companies
people have said look I don’t want you
to invest today but I’ve got an idea I
might come back to you in six months
time when I’ve got a kind of couple of
trial customers and I ask you to invest
but today I just want to test drive the
and kind of you kind of had it around
you reshape it and you let me think
about it and then I’ll go away build a
business based on that so I kind of
think the key thing is think about those
key questions those trends like what’s
the audience you’re serving what value
you’re providing how are you gonna make
a difference and kind of what is the
thing that about your idea that is gonna
be life-changing and provide massive
value for hopefully millions of people I
love it I it’s never been easier to test
drive an idea with with services like
Kickstarter out there where all you need
is an idea or a prototype and then make
a video and tell people about it it’s
never been easier to go out and get
customers before actually having a
launch and then go into manufacturing I
just ordered a little nano drone that
fits in the palm of your hand and that
uses GPS to follow you around while
you’re like running or skiing or
whatever and it records it and then
uploads it to the cloud and I bought
that off of an IndieGoGo campaign and
they raised over three million dollars
to create this nano drone and they may
not have known if it was a good idea or
not they may have you know jumped in too
soon they may have had the test and
tweak along the way but this is
validation and now they have the money
they need you know that’s that’s all
marketing dollars that’s not even
getting investors into the business
they’re not giving up any equity and
they raised three million dollars in in
money to be able to build their product
and so it’s never been easier to use the
technology today to test drive and see
if there’s an appetite for your product
if not then maybe you need to tweak it
because rarely is the idea that you
start with where you end up there’s
always tweaks and changes and so having
market feedback as soon as possible so
I’m just creating a vacuum can be really
helpful
yeah I agree on Kickstarter you know
what they’ve raised two billion two
billion dollars ten ten million backers
now one hundred thousand projects and I
think you’re right but not only is
there’s never been a better time to have
an idea there’s never been a better idea
to do things like crowdfunding and then
the key thing is you need to own your
idea you need to and it comes back to
Evans tank life believe you you never
want to add the key kind of
responsibility for your idea but don’t
be kind of too precious about your idea
because
feedback especially from early customers
and improve your idea all the time
improve your product improve your
service because as Evan said I again I’m
an angel investor in a lot of companies
and what I’ve seen the first business
plan and some of these companies are
grown to like valuations over 100
million the first business plan and what
they ended up with was pretty radically
different but boy oh boy did they test
drive and find out what worked before
they really scaled it up and then they
iterated it all the time and I think the
world is perfectly tuned to that in
terms of speed of execution the speed of
now yeah you know you look at BMW they
started as an airplane manufacturing
company that’s why their logo is a
propeller still Lamborghini started off
in tractors yeah and then went into cars
when he bought a Ferrari and Ferrari
told him you know don’t tell me how to
make a car you stick to making tractors
and he said I’m gonna make a better car
than you’ve gone to Lamborghinis and so
it’s a great point and your business
will change my business has changed I
don’t know how much sage his business
has changed from the start point to
where it is now I know you just made
that huge announcement and you’re all in
on the cloud and you know business will
change from the original idea to to
where you end that point what will make
you successful yeah the other thing I
but you know relative to Sage they’ve
started in the eighties and the problem
we solved them was actually digitized in
accounting records on the first
generation of PC technology our personal
computers you know the radical
disruption in technology with four
billion people around the world with
smartphones means that all our apps are
coming out now mobile first and and
everything’s about real time accounting
but it’s way more than that it’s about
payments it’s about payroll about
integration and the movement of money so
entrepreneurs just don’t have to worry
about kind of their back office but the
next radical change we’re seeing is
something called the back office or the
front office where we’re smashing the
walls that kind of used to exist where
you had a little kind of back office
accounted the barman and bookkeepers and
accountants and then the sales guys at
the front end never talk to the guys in
the back office even in a company 20
people and I think technology today
radically changes that so just like
consumers as entrepreneurs we can run
our business
from the palm of our hand from
smartphones we have all the stuff around
our pipeline all the predictive
analytics about what that will drive in
terms of cash flow and you know you can
do stuff like within three seconds get
an increase on revolving credit and all
that stuff through clever technologies
like predictive analytics so again I
think there’s two things one is your big
idea and then always have your social
antenna out there to the radical shifts
both in technology and users and
preferences in your marketplace and the
people you serve to always innovate
yourself always kind of disrupt yourself
and the examples you quote like BMW and
these great companies around the world
really opens your eyes up to say that
the star idea is never always the
destination rise online was was asking
and you you acted a little bit who’s
asking how has sage improved their
products over the years Wow I think this
is just a relentless thing we measure
something called Net Promoter scores of
our customers the accountants harmless
and every time and actually me and the
whole of the ticket team actually
measure ourselves on our Net Promoter
scores so that drives a lot of
innovation that drives a lot of
connection with our customers and last
year just give you a statistic from us
in our R&D department we rolled out 250
significant product releases during the
fiscal year and everything kind of you
know you’d expect to be cloud based
probably third of our customers now are
on the cloud and exploiting the
opportunity through through having their
data up in the cloud also Mobile first
is a real kind of radical shift because
again ever new and I run our lives to
smartphones whether it’s an iPhone
Samsung or whatever we expect
entrepreneurs especially the Millennials
to be saying I just kind of want to run
my business like I run my life so
there’s a ton of innovation do we do
enough I’m always frustrated I want to
do more I want to do so much more but
boy oh boy we’re doing a lot I love it
all right let’s head to the next one
from M be shocked and I hope I
pronounced it
does the idea really matter or the way
you market it hey that’s a great
question I think the idea matters but
more importantly it’s kind of the
relentless execution started with what
is the value proposition and then go to
market with it and again with the
digital age you can get stuff out there
in weeks they used to take years a good
example actually of the shift in terms
of market and I do you probably saw the
film joy jailer at law and with joy
Mangano in terms of what happened there
was what was a mock company I used her
life savings actually 70% of our
customers used their life savings to
fund their businesses but there was a
pivotal moment when it just was not
moving I don’t know it was like on QVC
where we just couldn’t get any sales
away and she she was gonna get dropped
as a product on that channel and she
persuaded them to give her the
opportunity to pitch her own product and
like within the next 20 minutes they
sold 18,000 mops so just a product
matter the idea it was a great idea but
the sales and marketing was awesome and
you know you can market your product
better than anybody else and the
Internet is a channel and YouTube and
you know vines gives you a unique
opportunity to market your product
perfectly so that lady after 10 years
and sold 200 million dollars worth of
moths and you probably wouldn’t think
there’s a lot of innovation in the world
of mops but boy oh boy a hat tip and a
salute to joy it’s a lot of marks yeah
you know for me this is it’s both right
you need the idea and you need the
marketing if you were marketing a bad
idea it’s not going to take off right
especially in this era where
word-of-mouth is so fast and people can
talk about how bad your product is the
best market in the world won’t save a
terrible product the idea is also
important because if you have crappy
marketing then it’s not going to take
off either so you need both I think also
just even talked about the execution the
the creation of the product because a
lot of people have an idea but they
don’t actually then create that product
or creed that sir
just sits there then well one day I’m
gonna do this one day I’m gonna start
and then never actually start and so the
execution of actually creating the
product or creating the service and then
marketing it it’s both right it’s not
just one or the other you need to have
both if you’re gonna have success as
entrepreneur yeah it interests me on
yeah you know in terms of today I don’t
think it’s just where you have the idea
but I’d say now if you’ve got first
mover advantage you can create a
marketplace sometimes maybe 10-15 years
ago if you had first movement Vantage
you’d find your idea was too early for
the marketplace and then one of the big
guys would steal the idea and scale up
and you’d sit there thinking I had that
idea and they’d build a business out of
it today I think through the digital age
you can get an idea to market really
quickly and you can scale it up evolve
it improve it and build a really
scalable successful business nice next
Jared how can you prove your ideas have
worth it worth – even if you don’t have
a social fall in a very small one my
dears and solutions have a lot to offer
big brands but proving I’m a value is
tough any suggestions yeah it sounds
like the questioner is is thinking about
maybe pitching the idea to a big brand
to market it if that’s the strand I
think you’ve got to stand out so you
know if your drink’s company and you’ve
got a big idea you want to go along to
coca-cola to pitch an idea it’s probably
good to start the business get the idea
get some success and momentum but then
how do you kind of stand out from the
crowd one of the things is a different
idea that jumps out to his success but
again actually the company I mentioned
before innocent
they got acquired I think majority state
by coca-cola for over almost hundred
million dollars and that was an idea
around smoothies they spent a lot of
time months and months blending
different smoothies all organic really
appealing to help the health market that
was evolving there about five years ago
but they stood out so I think with your
idea if you’re doing a pitch to some of
these big companies and you want to have
their market your idea or you want to
sell you come
to them then you’ve got to stand out but
what I would argue is you’re much better
off putting your energy into your idea
of building a business rather than
worrying about selling your business
never worry about selling your business
run your business grow your business and
you’ll get a lot of people knocking on
your door to say I want you to be a
bigger part of a bigger family you know
a lot of I agree yes in the comments
that you like it um you know for me this
comes back to our last point of the idea
is not enough I have tons of ideas for
big companies right I could walk into
McDonald’s and come up with a hundred
ideas for them from how they treat
people to what’s on their menu to the
cleanliness of the place to their
website you know the idea is good but
it’s not enough you know is the are you
can you provide execution to these big
brands right McDonald’s is likely not
going to pay you for an idea or whatever
big brand that you want to try to
connect with it’s the idea plus the
execution if all you’re giving them is
the idea then they have to execute on it
they have a list of ideas to write you
know you have a list of 10,000 ideas
every big company has a list of 10,000
ideas – Stephen already mentioned today
about he wants to get more done right
he’s got a list of 10,000 ideas that he
wants to move sage in the right
direction and so the idea is not enough
the only the only caveat in terms of in
terms of that in my mind at least is if
you have a patent if you can patent the
idea and you can get it protected then
all you’re gonna go is sell the patent
to the company but then there has to be
something to Stevens Point before are
really unique really different something
that people will recognize but otherwise
if you can’t get it patented
then just selling an idea to a company
is not going to be enough you need to
have the execution yeah on that as well
I think it’s fair to say it’s all about
execution and never ever kind of just
stand still you got to win obey all the
time and also just sometimes you get
lucky or something happens in the
marketplace that kind of shifts the dial
and makes your idea irrelevant example a
company a great company but Sir customer
of ours called glowy in France back in
kind of 2013 they were watching kind of
marine biology and stuff and there’s
this really cool like given off farm by
creatures under sea just like a surreal
idea in the air
something called bioluminescence I can’t
even pronounce it but basically it’s so
kind of light that’s given off undersea
and then the French legislators brought
in some laws to stop shop Sampat Eisen
with big neo science and stuff like that
because it was bad for light pollution
and these guys that glowy developed this
kind of marine Lumino technology that’s
environmentally very sensitive and
compliant with the law and they built a
business where they’re lighting up kind
of advertising fur companies after dark
in France so legislation change of
regulations and and also change in terms
of market requirements just be aware and
always sensitive so not only is the idea
got to evolve you’ve got a market test
here but you and I know and this is so
true now in 2016 the market is so
different today than it was five years
ago and you know Evan maybe you give us
some example in terms of the gaming
industry and and everything people like
oculus you know how to add a bat but you
know virtual reality it’s changing so
quickly that you’ve got to be really
attuned to the opportunities yeah
there’s a follow-up question from Kim
Yuna who’s saying Steven that’s really
encouraging advice I love your idea
execution the ideas execution for me
execution is mine Mount Everest because
I’m starting out on my own so you know
what advice do you have for solo
entrepreneurs we’re having trouble
executing on their ideas because you
have to do everything from CEO to
janitor in their company yeah I think
you know if you work in out of your home
or whatever you’re an entrepreneur key
thing is structure discipline and
routine so kind of even get out of your
pajamas get downstairs get your
breakfast get up early get every day
just almost imagine you’re working in an
office creating a business from from the
get-go so and then from that I think
it’s all about the bass right execution
bias traction so come up with your idea
that’s good enough test drive it with
the community that you want to market
and sell it to you can do that you know
a number of different ways you could
gonna go down to the local coffee store
if it’s kind of consumer idea you could
do it with your friends but the most
important thing is get your idea in the
market
if it’s a product or a service start
actually getting your first customer and
it’s almost like Evan when I go back and
I was in a startup into California as an
angel investor there’s momentous times
especially if you’re on your own you
need to celebrate because sometimes you
can have down days it can be depressing
so you know it’s like the first time you
get your product to market celebrate it
you know open up a bottle of spring
water or something like that whatever
you want to do when you win your first
customer
celebrate it savor the moment and
remember those kind of masters when you
get your hundred customer when you get
you know a customer repeat referral
where they recommend you to other
customers celebrate these things because
that gives you great spirit it
galvanizes your energy and it reinforces
your ideas and then once you’ve got
customers I mean it’s all about test
drive in their feedback build feedback
into your model from day one so that
you’re always innovating you’re your
price almost like with people what I’d
say I’m Evan this is pretty crazy there
are people the minimum standard has got
to be better than the best of our
competitors and it’s the same with
products so as soon as you see
competitors trying to eat your lunch and
catch up you’ve got a leapfrog to the
next level and just think that will be
good enough for the next 90 days because
in 90 days time and guarantee you need
to leapfrog to the next level again it’s
just a constant relentless innovation I
love it I love I love the passion come
on it’s great thinking about you know
being a solo entrepreneur one thing that
I would encourage you to ask yourself
every day is what’s the highest value I
can bring to my business in carve out
time for what I call CEO time where
you’re not just putting out fires and
reacting but you’re purposely planning
what you want to do to grow your
business at least 90 minutes every day
of CEO time on big-picture stuff to help
you grow otherwise you’re just going to
stay on the treadmill and in terms of
celebrate I love that point I remember
when I was first starting out and it had
you know eaten beans for lunch every day
and making $300 a month when we had
something big happened we would go to
McDonald’s and we would celebrate with
french fries not of not a whole meal
because we didn’t have the budget
but just french fries and that was our
tradition of going out hey we got a new
sale let’s go get some french fries so
it doesn’t have to be a big expensive
party celebration you know just just
taking the time out to celebrate is
super valuable important because it’s
hard to stay motivated sometimes as an
entrepreneur and those little things can
make a big big impact I love it all
right well we have we have Julianne
calling in all right hey I love this hey
every night Julie and I love it when you
guys call in it’s kind of free way
interact it’s good fun Julianne tell us
tell us what you do and give us your
question absolutely so what I do I own a
dance studio kinda like Evan and yeah
move Desson Fitness right that’s kind of
our motto so excited company so maybe
you want limitations from no one but
recently what I started doing is is this
blog called sleep sumo calm right which
is pretty much just about helping
entrepreneurs sleep better because I
think you know I want to business myself
you know and I know as entrepreneurs is
extremely hard to sometimes shut it you
know shut it down right and say the case
it’s time to go to bed we can we can
fight tomorrow again you know so so
anyway that’s the blog that’s what it’s
about but my question to you is when do
you know when it’s time to kill a
product so that you’re making money and
maybe you have two or three making money
when it’s time to you know to say you
know what enough let’s just focus back
on on this versus the two or three that
we have I think it’s a great question
and I think that the reality is the best
sanity check is to sit in the shoes of
the customer and go and you know you
should have pick up the phone social
media check how many customers you know
it comes back to what Evan says what is
the value that they derive it from your
product or service how is it changing
their lives how is it creating benefits
how’s it saving them time how does it
make them feel better all those sort of
things you’ll know pretty quickly when
you talk to your customers is it a
product failure issue or idea failure or
is it actually if I tweak it a little
bit I could have the right answer
and then you know what the great thing
is if you actually said to the customer
how about if I came back to you in 30
days time and I tweaked it to do what
you’re telling me you need would you be
interested and they were always going to
say yeah they were always going to back
you because also you’ve got a kind of
relationship with them so I think it’s a
great question what I would advocate
though is you kind of when you do we’ve
all failed let’s be honest we’ve all
felt that entrepreneurs I mentioned by
Richard Branson is coming to save some
it loads of product failures company
failures but you know he he’s awesome
because he’s done so many projects what
he’s been really smart and he started
initially in music and then he’s got a
massive travel company Virgin Atlantic
he’s got all these other businesses
Virgin Money what he did really well was
test the market go out there kill the
businesses that weren’t going to make it
and scale up the businesses that were in
the products it was and I think you’ve
got to trust your instincts I think
there’s a thing Evan says about belief
but as entrepreneurs some days are dark
days let’s be honest and you need to
kind of give yourself a bit of spiritual
uplifting and that’s when you go back
and check in with your customers because
yeah when you actually talk to your
customers they’re the greatest people on
the planet and they they want you to be
successful they’re really rooting for
you so you’ll find out very quickly from
those customer conversations whether
it’s a kill or it’s an enhance innovate
and adapt Julie Oster me for me it would
be when you lose your passion in what
you’re doing because the stevens point
about talking to people and getting
feedback and having to twist your and
tweak your offering when you lose the
passion for that project you’re not
going to be willing to put in the hours
anymore you’re not gonna be willing to
modify it and change it and put in the
work anymore and so if you are though
like if you still love this thing this
is still your baby you’re still excited
about it you know the dance thing or
something else you’re talking about then
you’ll find a way to make it work like
with more hustle you know what you have
may not work great yet but with more
tweaking and more hustle be able to make
it work but if you don’t have the
passion you’re gonna quit and so that’s
when you give it up the flip side as
well as their
who are making money and lose a passion
in their business and they get bored and
that’s how to the time to sell your
company right it has value if you’re not
passion about anymore it’s just gonna
flatline and then start to decrease and
a lot of people think well that’s
passive income for me so I should keep
it but really the guts of time go sell
it move on to something else that you
are excited about so for me as long as
I’m excited by something as long as I
believe in it then I’m doing it if not
then move on to something else and
everything that you put in has been kind
of sunk cost you’ve grown you’ve learned
you’ve gotten better and now you know
focus on the future
awesome so do you do you actually guys
write down like okay this is some of the
stuff that I’ve learned I’m okay with
just deciding that I’m although I might
still be making money from it right I
feel like it’s not necessarily scaling
or growing then I’m okay I’m just gonna
kind of just journal this is what I’ve
learned from it and just put it on the
Shelf perhaps and just like move on to
the next step
yeah I think there’s a couple of things
in terms of what I say which is a bit
harsh actually but it’s true there’s
only two types of companies in the world
two types of businesses there’s growing
a successful businesses and there’s
dying businesses the only exception that
is lifestyle businesses and some folks
who might be out there would just say
you know I’m happy I’ve got a great
work-life balance
I run a lifestyle business it kind of
flatlines on revenues it gives me a good
lifestyle I play golf or I dance or
whatever I want to do three days a week
and that’s okay but I think there’s sort
of people the entrepreneurs in the world
we’ve come from and the people who have
a big idea and what it changed the world
were low to passion to be have
exponentially growing businesses so
within that as I think you could look
what you know if you’re down the road of
three or four years you could say
actually I’ve got a good business I’ll
use as a funding vehicle to actually do
my big idea and one of the businesses
are actually want businesses I’ve
invested in a great arm business of
called cloud apps they’ve reinvented
themselves three or four times and
they’ve got good customers they’ve done
a good job but they plateau with one
product they use that as a cash vehicle
to fund their next big idea and they
started with sustainability then they
started with really cool stuff around
kind of gaming engagement and then they
started with all the stuff around a lot
of big companies use these products
called customer relationship management
but it’s really hard to get people to
use those so they provided all these
kind of incentives and gaming and fun
things to actually really make it a lot
more fun than them being in the
workplace so just as an example I think
if you’ve got a great product great
customers you know double down and go
through it but that could also spawn the
opportunity to have other ideas you know
like Evan said we probably three of us
could come up with twenty different
ideas so let’s pick the best one let’s
start that but you want to build a
company that could do three or four
ideas if they’re related ideas that
becomes really powerful in the venture
capital world we would call them
gazelles those are the high-growth you
know lots of opportunities Boeing fast
and then the walking wounded and the
walking wounded you just like hobbling
along but it never actually takes off
right and as long as your focus on that
walk and wound the business you can
never be a gazelle and so if you’ve
learned what you need to learn from it
then then shut it down or sell it or
give it to somebody else and focus on
the next thing that you can be a gazelle
with awesome well thank you so much for
having me all right you’re like we move
thank you hey Evan I love that it’s
great when we get folks on it’s really
good that’s great yeah not everybody’s
set up popular but it was good okay next
one is from Maria how do you approach
the company or manufacturer without them
taking your idea how do you protect
yourself from this yes great question so
I’m kind of one is if you can go to
market and you can manufacture the
product yourself that’d be great if
that’s not possible and and it requires
a significant capital investment then I
think it’s definitely worth looking if
is a unique idea with intellectual
property look at it patterning you know
I think great tehnology companies
typically apply for patents and and then
it’s all about speed because I think in
reality if I see an entrepreneur and
they do a pitch to me and they’ve got a
good
and they’ve got a real focus on
execution then effectively your backup
and it does come a lot about the belief
the passion and the execution but if
you’ve got the opportunity obviously
file a patent and make sure you kind of
got a got a safety net there safety
valve
yeah I agree patent is the way to go I
mean patents can be expensive you can do
a provisional patent which gives you
protection for a short amount of time
and then you can decide whether you want
to do the patent the full-blown patent
that you have to have you know you have
to pay for a patent in every country
that you want to have it protected every
year on top of the legal fees to kind of
get it set up so it can be expensive but
it gives you in if you get a provisional
patent it gives you a little bit of
space to play with the see if the idea
can can work or not I’d also like you’re
worried about a manufacturer taking the
idea I I believe in building strong
relations with my suppliers and I would
I wouldn’t just give this to any guy who
is the lowest cost provider to make this
idea for you I want to work with the
company that likes what I’m doing we get
we have similar values wants to be part
of my growth and my success and I
wouldn’t worry as much about them could
potentially ripping off my idea so you
can have the legal protection if that
happens with the patent but I think also
maybe doing a little more due diligence
upfront to find partners that you want
to work with you know Sage has their
accounting network and they work with
you know they’re their customers might
be small businesses entrepreneurs who
are growing their companies but the
accountants then refer a lot of the
customers in and they do a ton of work
say chose an insane amount of work
trying to work with accountants and
recognize them as as key partners and so
I try to find that kind of connection to
where you feel like you’re working
side-by-side and it’s not just a
transactional relationship
yeah jayven one one on say we took
various on other labs but find companies
and partners and suppliers and
manufacturers who share your your values
I think it’s really important and part
of the values you want to work with is
is integrity and Trust because I think
that that’s in companies with a half a
companies you want to work with
and that you’ll be successful with so I
you know if you know a company a
manufacturer has bad ethics don’t go
there just don’t don’t don’t compromise
yourself don’t never sell your soul so
focus on the the individuals with our
high ethics if you’re pitching good at
some of these there’s so many both web
base and real time pitching operations
there’s something tomorrow our theme is
called hashtag release IT where 10
companies go along and pitch their ideas
travel companies there who instead of
say what do you want they say how much
money you got and they’ll come up with
kind of despo k– packages search
through the web around what will fit
your needs so there’s loads of ways for
you to get the idea I think again
traditionally it’s very binary about
kind of its we’ve got a big capital
investment you go to manufactures I
think in today’s world there’s much
cleverer ways to actually start your
business get your idea to market and
then scale it up but most of all I’d
always say Evan you know we’re the same
in this I think always have companies
you work with that share your values
values and culture are really
fundamental I love it
next one coming in from cuchara my son
is very creative and intelligent has
come up with amazing ideas and I know
we’re not out there how do you go about
getting the money to do this
so trying to support an entrepreneurial
son what advice would you give I love
that I’ve set them up in the garage and
I’d say let’s let’s let’s pick your top
ten ideas let’s get a few your buddies
in in terms of you know maybe sort of
simulate customers sort of focus groups
pick pick one just pick one don’t try
and you know spread yourself too thin li
and then go to market with that idea and
then you can always scale up or come
back to the second idea I think in terms
of if you need finance to start it you
know 70% of our customers actually use
their own life savings or remor which
they’re at their homes that it’s a good
way you know if you really have passion
about your business is to back it with
some of your own kind of life savings
but all set is a great idea then there’s
fo
around the world people I have earned me
or your friendship group who are
prepared to invest a little bit in the
idea now I’ll give you an example
another guy I invested in about 12 years
ago called Mike he had so much energy so
much passion I honestly I wasn’t sure
about the idea but I I backed the
individual and I said no you’re asking
like four hundred thousand or something
like that I said I’ll give you twenty
five thousand if we hit these or you go
away and hit these kind of milestones in
the next six months I’m happy to double
down with you but I’m not sure about the
idea and it’s kind of when you get
people like that and I that was me in
that case it it keeps you honest so it
actually says that yeah I’ve got to hit
these kind of goals I’ve got to make
these 90-day goals 180 day goals and if
I do there’s a number of customers
reference ability of those customers all
those sort of things then you’re going
to attract money honestly
it’s like not only never worry about
making money but also never chase money
to fund your business because great
businesses will have a wealth of
investors out there was just making sure
you find them through the best channels
and sequence of time when you need them
but for your son setting them up near
garage find his best idea get it to
market quickly back a scale it up and
make sure it’s all focused on providing
value so you know I’d support him
totally yeah and I would say don’t let
the lack of money be the restriction
because it’s not because right now you
want to invest your hustle your energy
your your ideas your enthusiasm I like I
like I love you do picking one idea and
setting it up in your garage or basement
or tree house or whatever and just start
and give him the motivation
encouragement that you believe in his
ideas even if you know he hasn’t had
success yet in the marketplace my
parents did that with me when I was
selling baseball cards you know 12 years
old 13 years old setting up shop on my
driveway selling baseball cards every
weekend and that taught me a lot of the
entrepreneurial hustle and skills and
maybe your son’s ideas were bigger than
that
and that’s great but you don’t you don’t
need money yet to start it go out and
get customers yet I get some
feedback from the market the people like
this and if you really need it then you
can go launch a Kickstarter campaign
once you’ve created your idea once you
have some momentum once you know what
people want and then before you go I
hate the idea of luxury mortgaging your
house to bet on an idea and then it
doesn’t work that it’s just a big maybe
that’s my own thing I’m just I’m so
scared of entrepreneurs to do that
there’s always a smaller way to get
started you don’t need to fill your
basement with 5000 t-shirts you can go
to teespring and do it one at a time and
yes it’s not as profitable but you can
prove that it works like just prove that
you can sell one thing before you go out
and start spending a lot of money and
investing you know your life savings or
his life savings into it or going on the
credit card I know that’s how
entrepreneurs do it and it just scares
me because I don’t want you to make a
financial decision that then impacts you
for the you know potentially the rest of
your life
so don’t let money be the limiting
factor just put your energy your heart
your hustle into a go get some customers
get feedback on the idea make a
prototype and get get some order so it
may not be as fast as you want to grow
it but there’s nothing wrong with
bootstrapping a business and seeing
success every step along the way yeah
even some of the phrases I use around
here is kind of we want to run some you
want to run a bootstrap business you run
it on fumes
you really do because if you throw money
a business you’ve seen in loads of BC
back businesses they just waste millions
and tens or hundreds of millions of
dollars if you actually running on fumes
and focus on what do we need to do to
provide value for customers and start
with the first few customers and a lot
of businesses actually I’ve invested in
the customers have funded the businesses
and then there’s a second way where they
really need to scale up and then when
they do that the other things we kind of
say around here is always keep a chair
in every meeting free for a customer and
ask you so I closed in brown called Ted
Baker they said what is Ted one well
then in Ted’s a fictional character but
he the brand is Ted Baker and he’s a
fictional character they said what would
tell what would the customer how would
the customer feel about you know that
design or that that lapel oh you know so
you’re always putting yourself in the
shoes of the customer if you do that
and you really kind of other words like
treat the company’s money as if it’s
your own because it is and then really
think where would I invest that extra $1
and and think one dollar at a time $10 a
$500 time because the worst thing you
can do honestly is give your shown a lot
of money because you might not see him
you might go traveling around the world
for the next year but if you wants to
really grow his business the smart thing
to do is say let’s take one idea what
would it take to win the first customer
let’s go and do that scale it up to the
next hundred stay connected to those
customers to get feedback innovate
improve the product and then when you’re
confident its scalable think about the
next idea yeah I love it it’s a classic
give a man a fish or teach him how to
fish Yeah right like the best investment
you can make into your Sinus to teach
him how to fish instead of giving in the
fish I love it okay Irene I’m selling
and recommending health beauty and
weight management products how do I make
it make money because it’s picking up
rather slowly yeah and I guess in this
world is that you could argue it’s a
crowded market so I think the first
thing you probably you’ve got to think
about back to what we talked about you
know what’s the need you serving why is
it different where’s the value and how
you differentiate it from all the other
noisy products out there so and then I
think fundamentally it comes back to
find a really strong reference group of
customers that you can and I guess
you’re selling your product through the
internet and how you actually once
you’ve established a good customer base
start expanding that customer base so it
might be things like loyalty it might be
things I think with that sort of product
as well you probably need a broader
offering in terms of health Beauty not
just the product but the whole kind of
lifestyle so you might kind of feature
stuff on your website around lifestyle
health beauty even back to sleep and
stuff like that so you’ve got to provide
more value than just the product to
stand out and then the key thing with
all in a crowded noisy marketplace where
there’s a sea of products you’ve got a
absent
you always think how I stand there how
do I differentiate how do people come to
my brand because it is special unique
and it really meets their needs
yeah the tag on what Steve was saying I
always try to focus on what your story
is why is it so interesting for you did
this help you like have you lost weight
using these things do you feel more
healthy you’re beautiful because of
using it I think a lot of people jump in
the industry just saying they can make a
lot of money and they’ve never actually
used the products and it would never
actually recommend it to their friends
that’s not something like if you if you
don’t believe in your product and you
don’t use it and have insane success
with it you can’t expect to get results
selling it and so I think just even this
point about there’s so many different
products on the market the thing that
will make you stand out is your story
and why you’re so passionate about it
and I would use that to open up doors
and instead of kind of target one at a
time at a time at a time I’d be looking
at who can i partner with to reach my
customers so instead of I can find
someone who has a thousand customers
that I can talk to them instead of one
at a time and it also be try to get to
the media I have stories written about
me what if my story like the media is
always they always want story so give
them a good story they’re not gonna
write about your new product that was
just launched they care about the human
side of it and so those two things I
think could be really helpful if you
have a really powerful story to tell hey
Evan you can’t believe it was two days
ago
up a big operation we’ve got a new cast
of about 1800 people we’ve got an
entrepreneur a lady called Nikki got in
and we’re celebrating International
Women’s Day on women in technology we
started loads of stuff we’re doing a big
thing next month for female
entrepreneurs to come in and do pitches
and improve their pictures and get fund
and you get mentoring all those of this
but there is why I’m telling you this
Nikki got she just told her story she
told us about you know the days when it
was deeply depressing and she’s build an
awesome business in event management and
she personalized it completely to her
the adversities she’s faced how she’s
overcome them and you know it was
inspirational it was probably about 400
of our colleagues there and
for a moment there wasn’t a dry eye in
the house honestly and it was less about
the product it was more about the story
and it was about the emotional
connection and I think what you’re doing
for your product in this instance is
changing lives you know you if it’s
around weight loss well-being avoiding
depression all those sort of things it’s
really connecting individuals with a
life that they may not have even known
as possible and if you can bring them
the narrative around your own story and
the beauty of that and how’s it impacted
you and maybe friends and it’s they’re
happy your customers who have actually
had huge success and completely
reimagine themselves and rebuilt their
own self-esteem then I think that’s
awesome and and you could feature that
on your website because I think it is a
very personal story and it’s very
emotional of it I love it next question
is kind of similar the difference here
is though I says the customers find it
Costas isn’t the same industry but he’s
finding a the biggest rejection from
customers is cost it’s too costly so how
does it pass the this is too expensive
objection in in selling his idea yeah
it’s great I think it comes back to what
we said what is the value typically you
know if customer says too costly they’re
probably saying there’s something else
we used to call it there’s a hidden
objection rarely do customers if you’ve
got it which all about ideas we’re not
just producing widgets if you’ve got an
idea it’s probably gonna be unique it’s
gonna solve a real pain point for
consumers or businesses and it’s gonna
either save them bucket loads of cash
it’s gonna save a lot of time it’s gonna
improve their well-being there’s got to
be something that just jumps out in
terms of improving their whole user
experience of your product or service
and and that’s you know I’m not going to
say it’s priceless
but but people will drive value and cost
becomes a second consideration so if
you’re getting hit by costs and you have
what you consider to be a unique
proposition to a problem you’re trying
to solve your customers
then I’d say we’re probably not focusing
enough on the value and really
accentuated the value of what you’ve
provided because if they get the value
and how it makes a difference to their
lives then cost is always a secondary
factor yeah I think the biggest thing is
people don’t know why you’re different
you know prices always it’s always a one
of the concerns there are very few
people said I don’t care about price
right price is always a concern but it’s
almost never the only concern because
they want some kind of value in return
but if I can’t tell the difference
between you and somebody else I’m gonna
go with the cheapest one right you know
I went to Tim Hortons this morning to
get a coffee because I liked him Hortons
you know I use sage software because I
like sage right and so you know if
people cannot tell that this is your job
to help me understand the difference
between what you’re offering and
everything else are in the market
because if I can’t make that connection
then I’m just gonna go for the cheapest
option yeah and it could be you know if
you’re trying to build a brand like Tim
Hall it’s a great example I’d always go
to my local coffee provider and I’d
never go to Starbucks why because I like
to go in a local guy who gets up every
morning at 5 o’clock and builds you know
builds their dreams and just use their
passions so I declare yeah I’m put a
prejudice I don’t want to go to the big
multinational guys I want to get the
little guys all our all our suppliers
for Sage they’re all the small and
medium businesses will actively not go
to the big guys so do we consider that
we always get the lowest cost no but we
think we get quality relationships and
great products and services from
companies we deal with so I think so it
kind of comes back to Evans point but it
might be that you focused on the wrong
community is selling to if they don’t
get the value they don’t get the
differentiation of what the magic you
can provide then obviously kind of pitch
it differently first of all but if they
still don’t get it
and it’s just purely a cosplay then
they’re missing the value and you you
probably want to move on to the next
idea yeah or the next customer right
like yeah I know ideal customers
absolutely you can be what customers are
just too cheap so let’s move on there’s
other customers who who would be well
to pay you if you provide in the volume
KRC Katie what’s the best way to
monetize a website my brother has just
set up a website that provides rolling
tennis coverage
he’s been frustrated at the BBC sport as
very patchy tennis coverage and other
sports as a knock on BBC here
that’s great content how can he turn it
into a viable business so he’s trying to
create this website talking about tennis
upset at the BBC how does he make it
into a business so I think he probably
again it comes back to a little bit
having differentiate ourselves there’s a
lot of content on the web I think
there’s about four billion hits on
YouTube every every day it’s just crazy
so again well why is this different and
then how are we attract the inbound how
do we actually get ourselves so when
people search on tennis content we
actually pop up on the Google search and
although some of its so the first thing
is to have brilliant content so question
what what what mark will be trying to
serve what’s our big idea if our big
idea is to give incredible tennis
content and maybe some added value
around commentary or insight or you know
what why you know what what’s the view
on share up over at the moment and all
the kind of stuff in the news around
drugs totally different angle you
wouldn’t get that from the BBC up are
from the BBC News but you wouldn’t get
it from kind of the sports commentary
piece so what is the angle what is the
difference and then build on that and
then obviously I think through the
websites all about creating the
volunteer army get it to go viral get
loads of fun and the other thing you
could do I think you’ve got to make
stuff on the web pretty fun these days
so run competitions run surveys if
you’re going off to Flushing Meadow is
you going off to Wimbledon get a big
community build a community build that
volunteer army of people who love tennis
as much as you do and give them
something different give them another
angle get them engaged through
competition surveys maybe get them a
couple of tickets to Flushing Meadows if
they do amazing stuff for you thank you
creativity to act when I say in terms of
website business models one is you’re
gonna go mass market you want to get
tons of you know millions of views
you’re gonna then sell average
and have partnerships and sponsorships
on your site because they’re buying the
eyeballs the second way is that you’re
building an intimate community where
they know you like you trust you and
then you’re gonna sell premium access to
stuff if you access the content or your
ideas or your opinions or gear you know
swag whatever it is because they are are
tagged to your brain you can do both you
can be challenging but typically the
websites that start do one first so
either I’m gonna go big mark and get
millions of people in still advertising
or I’m going to focus on a really niche
play and have a really loyal community
and then start selling them products so
two different kinds of models play
around see was more in line with what he
wants to do hey just a crazy one I Evan
and it’s not related it is related to
this but a wider point and like crazy
believes the leave belief I live in a
tennis players
yeah I actually Roger Federer met him in
Dubai the nicest person you could ever
ever me now if I was building this
website around tennis content I would
never believe I could walk up to read
Roger Federer pull out a microphone or
an iPhone and just take a selfie or do
an interview with him or Djokovic these
guys are really nice guys you know
Serena whips so maybe you do crazy stuff
maybe you turn up at Flushing Meadows
when they’re doing a practice session at
7:00 in the morning
and maybe you say hey Serena can I just
have 30 seconds with you I’ve got to ask
this real burning question then post it
yeah just be disruptive do different
stuff do do stuff that no one would ever
think of so but but my point is believe
you will in your head we all have it we
all have these kind of voices tell us we
can’t do that we can’t go and talk to
these famous people they’re
unapproachable they’ve got 50,000
security guards they come in bulletproof
limousines and they get dropped off and
no they don’t they’re just normal people
they were just like you and I you know
they’re no different just because they
play tennis and there are hundreds of
billions of dollars they’re still normal
people and they still love fans they
love their fans so if you’re a fan you
love them just go up and get selfies
publish it on your website do something
different do something again to stand
out if
you can get interviews with them and
then you can build up a following you
know I kind of think around this sport
series it’s just like bloggers and
vloggers they’ve come from nowhere in
five years and now they’ve got massive
followings that’s what you need to
aspire to when I was 12 years old 12 and
13 the Blue Jays had won the World
Series so they were like the height of
baseball stardom and I would go to
Florida I would they do their spring
training that’s part of why I go to
Orlando a year and I would sit in the
parking lots as they showed up to spring
training and and talk to them and take
pictures with them we didn’t have
cameras you know cell phone cameras back
then but I would take pictures or get
them to autograph their cards and
baseballs and super coachable if you
just likes even sadly put in the effort
go out and and try to make contact with
them it it’s a lot easier than you think
and not many people are willing to put
in the effort to go and do it Rishi I’ve
been a Steven he’s back he’s back with a
cup what’s one of the first ideas to
make money from and what did you learn
from that first idea I made money from
was actually when I when I was about 16
I had about five different jobs and you
know two in hotels we deliver papers but
one of the ideas I made money from was
actually with a hotel I took so I
checked this out with the owner and they
said some of the stuff that they didn’t
actually in terms of the food and all
the goodies that they had for their
customers if they had a quiet season
they said I was okay to just take out
and if I could resell them that’s fine
because otherwise they were just gonna
throw it away so there’s little bit of
market was a seaside town so we just set
ourselves up on the seafront and just
sell stuff and you know how about you
you you create enough money to go on to
the next idea so I just think it was
allowed to get out there there’s loads
of opportunities and for me personally
at 16 that was a moment where I kind of
knew it’s a great way did I do it well
no it was our good salesman you know all
these sort
things but it’s a great start from that
you know those little acorns great oak
trees get formed I love it my very first
business venture was when I was five I
convinced my three-year-old little
sister to to paint pictures with me and
we went around the neighborhood and
tried to sell them and we sold one to
our neighbor for ten cents I had my
first sale and I guess I just learned
that from that you’ll create something
and then go out in and market it and in
all throughout school I had different
businesses none of them ever did
insanely well but you’re learning you’re
getting the hustle skills you’re
understanding the salesmanship I
baseball cards I did for a long time
throughout high school and at the end of
grade school and I would make more money
at a garage sale than the rest of my
family combined and when they were
selling couches and whatever I was
seldom my baseball cards and they could
understand how a piece of paper you know
piece of cardboard would sell for $40 or
$60 or $100 and how I was making more
money than them at like 10 12 years old
doing garage sales and so I think I
think just taking idea I think as kids
were willing to work may be willing to
take more risk we’re willing to just try
stuff we’re not as afraid of failure as
when we get older and so yeah I’ll go
dog knock door to door and ask somebody
to try to sell my art but imagine doing
that now people would have like a heart
attack
who would door to door some AR what if
they rejected what if they don’t like it
where I don’t know why that kind of that
creativity in that self-confidence maybe
or I guess as much as caring about other
people’s opinions would that become so
strong that it crushes our will and so I
think as an entrepreneur you those are
super important lessons we to learn
young so that it was able to help me
grow to the person I am now yeah and you
get you know as and we’ve all had it we
you get knocks you get people who say no
you get people turn you crazy but that’s
why you have to believe in your idea and
that gives you such tremendous
you you gotta have a few not to you know
if you’re an actor or act or you go off
and you do a thousand auditions you can
probably get no callbacks but that gives
you tremendous emotional resilience and
and as entrepreneurs you know it’s not
life’s not all sunshine it’s all about
taking the knocks taking the punches
being a ring with Mike Tyson getting
thrown out onto the gangplanks getting
back in there just getting out and
believe in yourself believe in your idea
and I think it’s kids actually you’re
right Evan just there are way more
emotional resilience because they just
step back and they just just love it and
they’re it’s fun and I think back to the
business idea it’s always got to be fun
so you’ve got your idea you believe in
it you’re passionate about it it’s fun
every day and when the fun goes out of
it that’s when you need to change what
you’re doing but one you’ve got fun
you’ve got belief you’ve got tremendous
emotional resilience and therefore you
can absolutely be successful I love it
that’s the shirt of the day this is the
little man so it’s triumph over the
little man and that the little man is
the hater the hater who just is knocking
on your business and telling you all the
reasons why it’s not gonna work out and
rise online was on this call designed
this shirt so I like the message of the
day trying for the little man it’s great
see we’re already bumping up against the
clock thank you so much for the time and
you have a final message for the
audience and maybe how they can reach
you as well or how they can learn more
about Sage yeah on Twitter is handle s
Kelly see ya I kind of think the the
thing we sort of always talk about is
either and money I think the thing I’d
leave you with is follow your dreams
again come up with an idea where you’re
really gonna really change the lives of
people and think about how it does that
for people and focus on the value and
their money follows you know if you look
at the branches you look at Oprah
Winfrey all these great people they all
say they never ever thought about making
money they thought of the idea and they
thought about how it changed the world
and how it would make the world better
for the community of people they serve
and then obviously money follows that
and
and and you know comes back to the
message evan gives every time is believe
believe believe and beach hugely
resilient because with the idea once you
translate it you get a lot of momentum
you’re gonna have a great business and
you’re gonna be you’re gonna be
absolutely celebrating your successes i
love it will see would thank you so much
for joining us again thank you all guys
for watching and we will see you next
month
great step guys thanks very much thanks
Evan
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