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December 31, 2005
Google practices our idea!
In our first book, The Entrepreneurial Mindset, we suggested that companies achieve focus by allocating time to projects across different levels of uncertainty. In reading the Business 2.0 of December, 2005, we discovered that one of the darlings of today's investors, Google, practices the same technique. Googlers call it the 70/20/10 rule:
"We spend 70 percent of our time on core search and ads. We spend 20 percent on adjacent businesses, ones related to the core businesses in some interesting way. And then 10 percent of our time should be on things that are truly new.
An example there would be the Wi-Fi initiative..." Citing CEO Eric Schmidt.
Very reassuring to learn that the advice works well in practice. For more, see the article in December 2005 Business 2.0 "The 70 Percent Solution".
Posted by Rita at 04:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Email - marketbuster waiting to happen?
So here's a marketbuster waiting for a solution: Email! Everybody knows that it can be a great benefit, but it also has major downsides. Reports Bary C. Sherman of the WhiteCollar Productivity Index (WPI) (from Business Week December 19, 2005):
The average executive in the U.S. is recieving 200 e-mails per day AFTER spam is extracted.
50% of those mails (after spam) are of no value to the receiver.
Administrative and new staff get about 50 emails a day of which 30% are of no value.
he estimates that an organization of 1,000 people will waste about 36,000 hours per year and a cost of $1.8 million in productivity just to scan and discard unwanted and useless email.
Doesn't this strike you as a problem someone is going to make a lot of money solving? if only we knew how...
Posted by Rita at 03:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Epocrates sparks disruption in medicine
We're watching the development of Epocrates, a service that lets physicians access drug data on hand held devices. In an industry that has been famously difficult to digitize, Epocrates has done it the old-fashioned way - by helping doctors save time, provide better service and do so more easily. They have been so effective at this that they have even enlisted physicians to promote their offerings. now that's a great approach to MarketBusting!
Posted by Rita at 01:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
24 Hour fitness capitalizes on a dying segment
Wal-Mart, Target and other big-box retailers have spelt doom for a good many middle market grocery stores. Indeed, according to a recent Retail Forward study (quoted in Business 2.0 July 2005) more than 10,000 of such medium sized supermarkets have closed in the past decade. You know the ones - those big-windowed, strip mall stalwarts that are often convenient, but don't have the great prices at Wal-Mart, the cachet of a Target, or the choices at Lowes, Home Depot, PetSmart or Staples. High-growth fitness company 24 Hour Fitness, the world's largest privately owned workout chain has found that the empty supermarket spaces make perfect locations for gyms.
They are not too fussy to remodel (costs $65 per foot as opposed to $105 for a new build), are in great locations for the in-and-out traffic they seek and best of all have ample and convenient parking. And even more of a second-order effect takes place when the gym moves in. While the local hardware store may shut down, chiropractors, vitamin stores and other suppliers of health related gear move right in. A terrific example of taking advantage of a change sweeping an entire segment.
Posted by Rita at 01:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
talk about irrelevant attributes!
So you run a business that's illegal in many places, and are prohibited from advertising. Not a problem. GoldenPalace.com, an Antigua-based gambling web site has made an art out of garnering publicity by pulling off wierd stunts. You've heard of them - they are the folks who paid $28,000 on eBay for a grilled cheese sandwich that some think looks like the Virgin Mary. They've made a bunch of other oddball purchases - like a haunted walking cane and a former stripper's silicon implants. Does any of this make sense? Sure - to get the kind of buzz these stunts have generated with paid-advertising would have cost a fortune.
Isn't this an amazing example of what we call a parallel offering, in which a company differentiates itself not on the basis of what they do, but on the basis of something that goes along with it.
Posted by Rita at 01:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Pesky packaging solution
In this season of impenetrable plastic packages, a wonderful invention has just come to my attention. Called OpenX, it's a knife like device specifically developed to open those hard cases that enshrine just about everything on my kids gift list this year. Ironically, it was invented by the guy that spent much of his adult life creating those self-same plastic packages, one Thomas Perlmutter. Opening these things is no joke - according to a recent article in Business 2.0, The US Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that attempts to open plastic packaging led to 2,943 injuries in 2004.
The company Perlmutter founded to commercialize his invention, called Ranchmark is already turning a profit, and the product has gotten great buzz with features in web sites gizmodo and even TV appearances. I'm going to order one today - will keep you posted on whether it is truly life changing.
Posted by Rita at 12:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
