Lean business practices
The Business Plan. Redux.
Mike | May 6th, 2013It has been some time since I last discussed business plans in these blog pages and I thought it might be time for an update. When Ross and I were developing the idea for crowdSPRING we wrote an extensive business plan – over 80 pages of detailed description, research, tables, charts, models, and projections. The [...]
Lean Business: Pivot Point
Mike | April 8th, 2013In 2010 the co-Founders of Burbn, a check-in app for mobile phones built on HTML5, raised $500,00o in seed funding for a service that was designed for quick mobile sharing between users. The co-Founders had labored for over a year on their app but it was not gaining traction and they were unhappy with its functionality and [...]
Lean Business: Do Unto Others*
Mike | April 1st, 2013The golden rule of word-of-mouth marketing: Be nice to thine customers and, lo, they shall be nice to you in return. The mechanical nuts and bolts behind this idea, in social psychology terminology, is represented by the concept of reciprocity. In short it referes to how people respond to a positive action with another positive action. [...]
Lean Business: Freelancers for ALL My Friends!
Mike | March 25th, 2013This year a great deal of my blogging focus has been on the struggles many small businesses have with capacity. In the business context capacity can refer to the physical space a company resides in, or the manpower available for a company to leverage. There is another aspect of capacity that is equally important and [...]
Lean Business: Office Space – A Meditation
Mike | March 18th, 2013Our lease is up at the end of the year and Ross and I have been discussing our options. We love our office: it has all of the features we need, plus a great location, fantastic light, a dramatic view of the downtown skyline, and plenty of space. Problem is, truth be told, it probably [...]
Lean vs. Mean – Small Business and Responsibility
Mike | February 11th, 2013I have written often about strategies small business can use to operate modestly, spend wisely, and reduce cost by taking a lean approach to operations, marketing, and production. At crowdSPRING we try hard to manage our business and our team using tactics and strategy that have allowed us to construct a sustainable business, provide value [...]
Lean Business Tips: Hiring Contractors for Fun and Profit(ability)
Mike | January 28th, 2013We write often about ways small business can reduce expense, increase productivity, and operate more efficiently through a lean approach to marketing, technology, and operations. Today I want to write briefly about a strategy we have used to very good effect when hiring new workers: outsource. When we hear that word, we typically envision massive [...]
