Photo: Henning Buchholz | Stock.xchng

If tomorrow never comes, camp ‘til it does. That’s the strategy I learned – or rather, endured – in the effort to get overdue adverts in and the design and layout ready for the sixth issue of CAN-DO!

“They said they’ll send the materials tomorrow” was the daily bread one of our suppliers fed us, until it became stale. After several meetings, emails, and calls, it was time to test the philosophy that people work best when under pressure. And what greater pressure could we give than having the client breathe down your neck as you work?

And so it is that I ended up sitting all day across from the supplier’s team leader. I read the day’s paper from cover to cover and seemed to have her at gunpoint. Out of nowhere, she would complain about being put under so much pressure. I told her I wasn’t even talking. “Yeah, but your presence…” she would say, lacking words to explain it.

But I stayed put. And it paid off. By the time I left the office late in the evening, I had the two ads that she had been promising us for over two weeks.

Next came the design phase. The initial design was thankfully swift but unfortunately littered with errors. The team was sent back to the drawing board. I collected their edited work, but my design-savvy editor noted that it still wasn’t satisfactory. Her painstaking formatting of text, for instance, had been disregarded. Faced with the dilemma of publishing in time and keeping CAN-DO’s layout standards, she decided our readers deserved better.

And so it is that I ended up sitting all day beside the designer, doing nothing but reading Adam Magazines. I also had him at gunpoint, as he went through his work more than eight times. And it paid off, too. The design team leader himself spoke of how it had brought the best out of them. My editor was hardly left with any reservations about the layout.

In between my office camping experiences, my editor gave me a little pep talk about how effective the strategy had proven to a friend of hers, who had been in the no-nonsense business of debt collection. Office camping is a sacrifice, a means of problem solving, which should only come as a last resort. It’s not the best way to do business, but when certain deadlines are not met, the oldest tricks in the book come in handy.

Even as I write this piece, the fifth issue of CAN-DO! the how-to business e-zine for everyone is almost ready. With the theme of “Breaking Business Boundaries”, it’s guaranteed to give entrepreneurs and wannabes a huge push towards starting something fresh, something different, something bold in this New Year.

Although we’re still pretty much writing for a predominantly Kenyan readership, I hope to make our articles more relevant to a broader audience by the sixth issue. The more I find myself online, the more I see that there is no such thing as a boundary for writing scope — except, of course, if I’m dealing with China. If our Facebook page is any indication, then I have to start thinking of the American SME owner as much as I’m thinking of the Mama Mboga (female vegetable seller) on the streets of Nairobi. I suppose that’s why I’m excited about the upcoming issue’s theme. “Breaking Business Boundaries” is as relevant to me as a reminder about expanding my borders as it is a battle cry for the aspiring entrepreneur from Timbuktu.

Have a look at the new logo I’ve attached to this article. Only the discerning eye can tell that it’s actually different from all our previous logos. The old logo was tweaked by a wonderful graphic designer, living in Baguio, the summer capital of the Philippines, which is up the boondocks known as Mountain Province. She and I do all our communications via email. Now how cool is that? In essence, I’m running a global company — at least, a burgeoning one. There’s no telling how far the Internet and new technology can take us.

Watch out for our fifth issue, okay?

Photo: Magda S | Stock.xchng

It can be a really jarring experience to skip for joy into the New Year and be stopped in your tracks by the realities on the ground. Depending on how you see them, they could either be just pebbles or boulders. That’s exactly what happened to me, when I went on my first meeting with the leader of my sales team.

They’ve been trying very hard since last year to get advertisers to sign on the dotted lines. No can-do. And then minutes of anxious whisperings later, they realise that they have to deal with the hired guns that are media buyers, some of who expect a cut from the marketing commissions they make. I sit across the table from my sales team leader and wonder, “Am I in a time warp here? Doesn’t the merit system exist in 2010?”

As a publisher of a darn good business/entrepreneurship magazine, I’m mindful of creating a publication that attracts readers, advertisers, investors, and the like to its pages because of its relevance and practicability to these people. That’s what I peddle to them: value. In return, I expect to receive value from them, too. So you can now imagine why I haven’t yet wrapped my head around this whole scenario narrated by my sales staff. It doesn’t compute in any pore, cell, DNA in my body that someone could make or break the conclusion of a business transaction based solely on my team’s adherence (or not) to an age-old payola system.

I’m still trying to understand.

Photo: Billy Alexander | rgbstock.com

Now that’s what we call a proper holiday!

We hadn’t posted anything since early December 2009 and we’ve missed tap-tapping words onto this blog.  But let us tell you this: Our hiatus was necessary and wonderful! We’re fully charged up for the year and are so excited to get going.

In case you may have missed our previous announcement: Our first-ever e-zine is now live at

http://anax8a.pressmart.com/Cando/index.aspx

And please don’t forget to fan our business page on Facebook. Just search for the page, “The CAN-DO! Company”.

At this very moment, we’re on the homestretch of our work on the fifth issue of CAN-DO! Watch out for its launch in the first week of February. That’s part of our effort of starting this year right. It’s not always been easy getting the issues out there on time, but we hope things can be different in 2010.

We’ve just emerged from probably one of the most challenging years ever for any business. Anyone who came out of 2009 breathing and still kicking is surely going to survive anything from this point on. So I guess that’s us! And countless of other entrepreneurs who don’t include “quit” in their vocabulary.

Just to crawl into 2010 is already something. We’re leaving behind us a rather messy past and steaming ahead into this decade marker. Although the Haiti tragedy isn’t the most upbeat way to start the year, still we can do nothing else but move on. Even that too will pass and we will become better persons for it as we soberly assess where we are in our lives and businesses.

So what’s ahead for CAN-DO? Watch out for our upcoming posts and see.

Happy 2010, everyone.

Photo: JadeGordon | Stock.xchng

Peter Jones has always been vocal about how he wants entrepreneurs to present in the den. He’s criticised many for their scruffy and drab looks, lambasted people for their disorganised answers. He’s even punched a mock door to pieces to test the durability of a product (I think it was a door lock being demonstrated).

Presentations can sometimes be make-or-break events for entrepreneurs because a lot hinges on how they can convince their audience to take on their products and services. Here are some random tips I’ve learned on my own and from watching Dragons’ Den:

1. Dress for the occasion. Know your audience beforehand and package yourself appropriately. While I often present in a suit, I’ve also done so in smart casual, depending on the corporate culture of the people I’m meeting. I can’t imagine walking into Google HQ wearing an Armani.
2. Double-check your gadgets: laptops, cables, projectors, laser pointers, etc. Last time I did a presentation a month ago, I discovered too late that the remote clicker had a dead battery — fault of the organisers, but I should have known better. Thankfully, I got someone who clicked for me, while I pretended to control the PowerPoint from where I stood.
3. Test your sample items yourself. One of the most disastrous presentations on Dragons’ Den involved two guys and their machine that produced water from air. According to them, the machine was not yet at the right temperature, when the dragons asked for a sip. Still, they had to deliver and what they gave the dragons had such a bad aftertaste, they were quickly sent packing by the angry investors.
4. Know your business plan by heart. If there’s anything that you especially need to memorise, it’s your financial figures. No one is allowed to carry a cheat sheet into the den, so it’s really important to know all the numbers up, down, and sideways, so you don’t get rattled by the dragons.
5. Make sure that everybody on the presentation team is on the same page as you the entrepreneur. Advocates are allowed in the den to provide supporting information for the entrepreneur’s case. There have been occasions, though, when the advocates themselves messed up the whole presentation by not knowing the facts on hand.
6. Go with a game plan. Quite a number of successful entrepreneurs in the den stated in post-presentation interviews that they actually entered the show, knowing who it was they wanted on board for their businesses. ” I was aiming for Theo because of his retail experience.” “I wanted Deborah for her marketing background.” “Peter was my ideal dragon for his position in the communications industry.” You need to do the same, too.

Dragons like to ask about markets. They’re hungry for information on who would buy or use the products and services entrepreneurs create. They want to know that they won’t just be funding the purchase of stocks that won’t ever move out of the “back bedroom”, where they could hide forever in the shadows, among dust bunnies and cobwebs.

Markets are made up of human beings. They eat. They play. They travel. They sit. They sleep. They watch TV. They queue up at the till. They’re so much more than just numbers, “demographics”, statistics on some researchers’ computer screens. They are you and me.

But if they are you and me, how come not every product that comes out into the market is bought? I remember one item in the den called the ladder box or something. When they did the Dragons’ Den on Tour episodes, the father-and-son team selling the ladder box was featured again. They still were not moving as much stock as they expected. In fact, there were several camera shots that showed their products being used for other things (e.g., plant boxes) besides holding tools up ladders.

So what’s to remember about markets? Simple: I have to make sure that I have one in place for every product and service I provide. In as much as there’s real need to devote resources into developing the products and services themselves, I must make certain that, after everything is done, there will be living and breathing people who will snap up my roster of offerings, who will pay whatever price I ask to enjoy it or to make the most of it.

It is not enough to come up with a great magazine. I should actually know who will buy it. Which human being will want to part with KES 600 for an annual subscription that includes six issues? How Internet-savvy is the potential reader? How often will the person read the magazine? Why is the person reading the magazine in the first place? I have to get into the person’s mind, heart, and soul in order to determine if my efforts will pay off at the bank.

Lately, I’ve been talking a lot to many people about “the experience” for CAN-DO’s various markets.  I’ve become very conscious that I’m not just giving them a consumer item, I must give something relevant to their lives, when they partake of the magazine. They should be able to participate and interact with it, so they’ll want more. Markets are more than people who facilitate the exchange of products and services for cash. They’re people who must gain something from what I give them.

Dragons can sometimes be very harsh when they criticise entrepreneurs for their inventions and goods and what-nots. They’ve used words like “stupid”, “foolish”, “silly”, and “useless” when they assess the intrinsic value of the product because they don’t see how it brings anything of worth into the markets. Much of what they say can often be cringe-worthy, but let’s face it: Entrepreneurs need to respect markets. Markets aren’t dumping grounds for the products of our boredom, confusion, and greed. Markets are people. They’re not amoeba. They deserve something of value from us because we’re also eager to gain something of value from them.

This is a screenshot of the site hosting our first e-zine, which is the fourth issue of CAN-DO! It says it all: It’s live. And now we’re in the process of ironing out some technical kinks, before we give out usernames and passwords to our paid subscribers, who are currently the only ones with access to the premium content version.

The free downloadable version should be available in a few weeks’ time. Thanks for waiting.

It’s almost half past midnight now and I’m still up, admiring the cover of the new (fourth edition, first e-zine) CAN-DO! bimonthly. After an hour of back-and-forth calls between Kenya and India, we’ve finally confirmed that our live date is on 5th December 2009. (Don’t worry. We’ll post all pertinent details on how to access it.) After an arduous journey from the last print issue we had (for April-May 2009), the news stirred up a lot of my emotions.

After the dismal condition of our cash flow, countless disappointments from fruitless meetings, and disappearance of human support, the confirmation of a live date was a resounding AMEN to the vain hope that kept me going, even when I literally had nothing but coins in my purse and less than a KES 100 in two bank accounts combined. It sounds trite to say that it made the struggle all well worth it, so I’ll avoid that. Instead, I’ll just say that the live date of the e-zine means that I can now retreat briefly (for three days) into the blissful land of no-tech in order to regain my strength and continue moving forward. I know that I’ve earned the time of rest.

Meantime, let me encourage you to consider subscribing, joining our various online presences (this blog, the upcoming Butterfly-hosted portal, YouTube channel, Twitter), fanning our  soon-to-be-launched Facebook business page, and so many more things to do with CAN-DO!

I won’t be back online until Friday. Until then, explore this blog and wait for the next Dragons’ Den lessons.

Photo: Daniel Wildman | Stock.xchng

When the dragons start their interrogation of entrepreneurs, one of the most essential questions they ask is “How do you make a profit?” In other words: How is it a business? How do you make your money in this setup? What is your business model?

The past seven seasons have, of course, brought a variety of entrepreneurs into the den, so we’ve had the privilege to see many business models falling under the scrutiny of the investors. Franchises, exclusive clubs, licensing, retail, and pyramid (!) schemes are just some of the many models presented before our fierce five. Very often, after a thorough dissection of them, the dragons are simply unconvinced that they could work, i.e., that they could make money.

It’s really very important to determine what the business model is from the outset. Just today, I was reviewing another DD episode, when I came upon a father-and-son team hoping to sell their ladder box invention. When Theo Paphitis asked them what their plan was (to make money, of course), the son answered, “We’ll sell lots of them”. Nice quick answer but very ambiguous. After all, every business IS supposed to sell something (product or service), but the how-to of it must be nailed down pat to leave no room for doubt as to its viability. That’s what a business model answers.

Again, flashback to my early days as an entrepreneur. It’s now cringe-worthy that in those times, I used to talk at length about the quality of CAN-DO! but very little about how it could be profitable. And, of course, these days, with publishing establishments falling by the wayside almost every week, I can’t just simply rely on selling the usual advert space, even if advertising is the recognised bloodline of magazine publishing. So one of the primary questions I’ve now learned to ask myself: What is my business model here? How do I intend to make money from this?

Very soon, a new thing will start with CAN-DO! (Teaser!) And even as I’m excited about its possibilities, I’m making sure that my entrepreneurial neck is steadily holding up my head. I have to focus on the fact that the new thing is not just an opportunity to be more creative. The bottom line question is “Is there a solid business model behind this new thing?”

I’ll end this point of reflection by sharing a link my assistant gave me today. It’s a short article in a Kenyan newspaper, detailing a “futuristic” business model, appropriate for e-commerce entities like CAN-DO! It’s something I’m currently marinating on as I figure out the new business model for our new thing in CAN-DO!

http://www.nation.co.ke/blogs/-/445642/687968/-/view/asBlogPost/-/wqumpp/-/index.html

Photo: Guilherme Silva | Stock.xchng

This’ll just be quick, as I don’t have enough time (!) today to stay in front of the computer. I’ll soon be off on the first of a series of meetings that’ll take me off to another side of Nairobi. I just wanted to share this story to illustrate the importance of timing. It has to be perfect.

In the first series of Dragons’ Den, two guys came, asking for an investment for their invention: a machine that automatically rocked a baby to sleep, whilst in its pram. The dragons were impressed enough to make an offer, but the entrepreneurs turned it down because the equity share being asked for was far more than what they were willing to give up. They vowed to make it anyway, without the dragons’ assistance.

Fast forward to the second series: The guys came back to the den. They never managed to launch their product. They had spent the year perfecting the machine but hadn’t really sold much. (Did they even try to sell any?) They were now back to asking for an investment for their better machine. In the interim, another similar product had already launched and sold a huge number of units in retail stores.

This time, no dragon came to their rescue. The dragons made it very clear that the machine was no longer a viable business proposition because it now had serious competition. The poor entrepreneurs left without a single pence. Not even the dragon who offered to invest in them in the first series wanted to have anything to do with their product.

Amazing how one year went just like that and how things changed for everybody. Something to think about for both investors and entrepreneurs.