Maybe you own a business or you have launched your startup but wonder where you are going to get the money to really drive it to become the success you know it could be. You have sought funding from all the popular options – Banks, but are not eligible yet. Your family, friends and colleagues, have a lot on their plate to consider this idea of yours at the moment, they like it but well, the time is not right. You have gathered up all of your savings and its running out really fast and you are looking towards the next course of action.
Courtesy: corporatevision-news.com
Comes in Startup Business Funding Competitions
Startup or business funding competitions are life savers and, business power boosters if you can access the funds – or correctly put, if you can win the funds. So how can you position yourself to ensure you can absolutely win funds when you apply through a startup competition?
As you already know, competitions are competitive, because every entrepreneur or startup founder could make do with the cash to jumpstart or totally overhaul a business, so expect a tough run on this one.
Business Startup funding competitions can be time sapping, as you need to go through painstaking thought process when it comes to filling the application. Hence, picking your battles wisely is essential to success.
To apply for startup business funding, there are necessary things you need to understand and follow to the letter if you desire to come out tops. They include;
Truths – understand these truths and take your rest
Startup competitions are a dime a dozen. Determine which ones are for you and those that are not and leave them alone
The more competitions suitable to your business or startup you can find and participate in, the more your chances of winning
You can win the very first competition you apply for. Don’t be cork sure about that and don’t count on it but stay as positive as you can about it.
Dos – do these and expect the best
Thoroughly read the entire content provided about the competition you wish to apply for.
Again, thoroughly read the entire content a second time without skipping a line.
Copy the content on a word document and if you can print it out.
Properly understand the objectives of the competition.
Read the ‘About us’ page on the website to have firsthand knowledge of the company or organisation behind the competition.
Determine if the competition is for your kind of business, your nationality, your stage of business etc., by fitting your business into the objectives of the competition. Do this by underlining or taking notes of specific, important points that relate to the competition which intersects with your business.
If it states that the competition is providing seed funding to startups and you are in growth stage, don’t apply.
If traction is required in terms of user acquisition, sales or revenue generation and your business is still at idea stage, please don’t waste your time.
Try to almost perfectly fit yourself into every objective of the business, and you are very well above good standing
Creating your Application – The Real Deal
I tell all entrepreneurs and startup founders I work with one thing; it is not the smartest entrepreneurs that get the competition cash, but the bolder, strategic pitching and fine writing entrepreneurs who do.
So to get your application listed as a strong contender for the cash from the word GO, here are things you should do;
Pitch with gusto
Most competitions will need you to fill out boxes on the application form, not exceeding specific number of words. Make every word count and hit home like a missile that knows exactly where it is going. It is not the number of words you can write but how good you can punch home the words that matter. With that said, updating your business writing skills is a plus for any person who wants to win business startup funding competitions.
Be Strategic
Speak industry words like you created the industry yourself. Tell your evaluator where you think your industry is headed and why you may very well be the game changer the world is waiting for. Use industry facts, data and numbers where necessary, supporting these with relevant references.
Be innovative
Competitive funding applications always present you the opportunity to think through your business model and your differentiation strategies. This is your chance to emblazon your innovativeness. Why are you different from all the other market players? You need to bring on your A game here.
Seek professional help
Don’t be shy to seek professional help when you need it. As an idea strategist, I have hosted an idea challenge funding competition and worked with all kinds of entrepreneurs to access loans and grant funding from business competitions, running into millions of dollars. I can categorically say that the entrepreneurs who seek help from professionals such as accountants, strategists, business developers etc., when they are stranded, are better positioned to win the cash. Why is this so? They are humble enough to understand that they know the business they are driving but they lack the wherewithal to express this business in a strategically assertive and spellbinding way. While some competitions may state that applicants go through the process alone, no real business that has truly succeed has not drawn advice, help or support from people, consultants, experts etc., no matter how small. So seek help where and when necessary.
Show Proof of Success
If your business has proof of success, show it. If this is demanded, have it ready with real numbers. Funders, investors or startup competitions love to know their money is going in the right direction and a little proof of success will definitely go an awesome long way.
These steps will get you the money if you follow through on them. And the only thing that may stop you will be the narrowing down to fit a certain number. But the good news, it can still get you on the top of the narrowed down number. So should you be applying for your next startup business funding application, take these steps personal if you want to win.
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Disclosure: This review, article or report was first posted on http://www.babeonideas.com blog in 2017. The http://www.babeonideas.com blog no longer exists. Some information may be outdated or a startup may no longer exist in the form or all of its form when it was first reviewed.
‘The world’s largest IPO – Circus comes to the NASDAQ. Facebook IPO, a sham-stead. Everyone loves Twitter. Just a minute, the Facebook plunge is just halfway to the bottom. Get that protégé out of here and bring in professionals. Twitter is doing everything Facebook didn’t. Wow, a silver lining appears on the Facebook cloud – mobile advertising. Twitter is the real social media jewel of the Nile. Still, looking for a cheap stock to lay claim to? I’ll advice Facebook. Twitter stock – not a keepsake. May Day, May Day, Twitter is losing altitude. Oh no, a Twitter eulogy already? Facebook stock soars on mobile ads. Twitter treads with wobbly feet. Facebook thumps expert expectations.’
Devised, but characteristic chattering, headlined by experts declaring the missteps of Facebook pre, on and post IPO launch as its opening share of $38 nosedived to $34 and its present soaring to $75, to the compulsive adulation of Twitter prior to its IPO launch and after, for its staggering rise from $26 a share to close at $42, to its later dismal performance on the market. We also witnessed expertise foresight on the descent of Apple after the demise of Mr. Jobs and the ascent of Samsung as the industry poster boy as both giants battle for supremacy on multiple spheres.
We have watched expert-tales run amok of their storylines, inapt commonness mostly making a homerun on IT-based conglomerates and startups as the industry maintains the hype of high growth sector, and poised to be advantageously mined by investment enthusiasts. No doubt, the sector has positioned itself in the last three decades, as the new road to Eldorado, for its creation of record time runway successes of conceptualized solutions, churning overnight billionaires in its wake.
Needless to say, the failure of expertise in predicting outcomes of ideas, products and industries, especially those driven by technology has been nothing short of mortifying, causing me to mutter, “Expertise, in this century, is doomed!” The visceral nature of my conclusion does not solely lean on the seeming futility of expertise but on contributing forces beyond their control as the asteroid-like momentum these ideas are being launched into the marketplace – along with their peculiarities, produce misty concepts of what to expect, as we all truthfully strive to grasp an industry taking infantile strides – a fact experts need to more frequently chime.
With some of these ideas appearing to dilly dally within realms of dream-injection to alter the course of a business empire (in our case industries) as seen in the Leonardo Dicaprio led Hollywood hit, Inception and some spooky Harry Potter tale set on the Hogwarts campus with a goal to demystifying the legendary evil Voldemort. Or so my perception gnarled, until I coincidentally stumbled upon ‘What will be’ – a hearty rendition on the future of the information technology marketplace by late MIT Laboratory for Computer Science Director, Michael Dertouzos – from a used book store owned by a client who flipped payment for services with a barter deal I considered absolutely generous.
An almost perfect craft of all we see today lay in it, garnered by long, hard years of steering and sitting atop cutting edge research he commingled with scientific progress and timeless human attributes. Ultimately bulldozing any extraneous ideologies of seventh heaven experiences to generating information technology idea-wonders I may have nursed. But then, these technological ideas still soar above minds of Einstein-IQed tech CEOs, who even though birth them, are more often than not misplaced in the maze of management flow and rippling industry innovations. While pundits may sneeze up a storm, a whole new level of amenability marked by traditional bird’s eye view, walled-ears and criticism laced observations should be welcomed. This is a deep-seated understanding of the fuel that fires a generation, saddled with the enormous task of defining a new business era. Therefore, romanticizing the surrounding opportunities it bestows, and its unfolding challenges, and the impact they bring to this future deserves precedence.
Who runs the world?
Saying information technology has transformed the 21st century business landscape, with an unyielding position to immeasurably determine future outcomes in inconceivable ways is restating the obvious. From governance to health, education, agriculture, manufacturing, retailing, finance, telecommunications and all industries on the planet that provide routes to market share conquests, financial profitability and enterprise sustainability, including those which in the past never canoodled thoughts of technology as a match made in heaven, like the third sector, are all being betroth.
The opportunities this virtual motor-source could yield for business far outweighs any form of scientific postulating or psychic mirror balling any industry juggernaut may aim to foretell as it trails its uncertainty, struggling to adapt to each new move in a bid to staying relevant. Though a mid-level hobbyist, I never gave schooling in computer programming much thought until a vision of the night chauffeured me into a future where coding was the alphabet – the building blocks of all language. Taunting glares I received from confidants I relayed this to, did little to stifle my trepidation as all I could think of was where to begin. At 33 and still soon-to-be wed; I had jumped into primal feminine mode, apprehensive about the life and career success of my unfertilised ovaries.
At the back of my mind, the unflinching resolve to chaperon a creative, forward thinking educational development for my offspring, one which equips them to thrive in versatility in an ever expanding world of information and sub-specialisation dynamism. As hours turned into days, I felt a fading of my flash of genius with some introspection – self-taught kids. With majority of frontline IT applications emerging from mostly self-taught kids possessing magical curiosities for coding, information technology demands a form of wonderment and interest above any aim to impart. It has taken a stance that it seeks marriage with boldness and genius and is unperturbed by the imperfections this union may present. This passion for computers and the power to code by a handful, vanguard a participatory millennial business era, according room for the flourishing of seeds of innovation that cross cuts global audiences.
The Swinging Sixties Unprecedented technological advancements into the 20th century facilitated the evolving of the concept of computers to programmable, mainframe systems too expensive to be reproduced, giving rise to the time-sharing innovation with which came greater advantages as computer sharing within a community of people working from individualized terminals was born. Technological developments also largely influenced diverse trends which included those within the recording industry, as widespread use of vinyl record and improvements on the electric guitar and microphone, culminated in the explosive growth of music in the 50s with the invention of the transistor, and used as a replacement of vacuum tubes in radios, leading to the mass production of the transistor radio, all catalysts to the boom of rock n roll.
These growths, in my humble opinion, created a meeting point for two revolutionary movements, one quiet, and one loud but each creating similar resonance; time-sharing and rock n roll. While time-sharing on computers expanded solely within research communities in the 60s, rock n roll had taken the world by storm in the mid-50s, crystallizing its spot in the 60s as a reputable genre in the history of world music. A feat that would take 30 years for time-sharing to replicate with information sharing using computer technology. Rock n roll, emanating from a mix of European instrumentations, African American styled Jazz, R&B, Gospel and traditional southern American Country, enabled cultural collision as white artists incorporated this style, creating a distinguishable genre idolized by affluent white teenagers.
An experimental youth culture dreaded by parents who feared its negative influence on their pliable teenagers, rock n roll served as the icing of the counter culture movement of the Sixties; a definitive decade which propelled a breakdown of cultural norms, snowballing into social revolutions of civil rights, women and minorities rights. The revolutionary dimensions created by this evolutionary music style were extensive, defining an age group like no other music had ever done, shattering barriers and instituting avenues for synergy and shared experience between teenagers of different races, fostering a crazed-teen culture possessing its own language idiosyncrasies, attitude, fashion and lifestyle.
Spawning multiple sub-genres from rock to acid, folk and metal rock, itself spawned from rockabilly, an extremely fun, danceable worldwide phenomenon with classic sound instrumentations and core country, jazz and blues influences, a genre made popular by a 19 year old greenhorn artist, Elvis Presley, who became known as The King. In the same vein, the re-inventing of the transistor consistently transformed mainframes into modern, manageable sizes, birthing the personal computer powered by the information super-highway, triggering another youth subculture with surprisingly interchangeable effects.
Communities for information-sharing and social interactions have come to define an age group, granting them a voice to drive social movements. And like rock n roll, has produced its own distinct language – emojis and texting abbreviations; attitude – selfies; lifestyle – social media. And funnily, exchanged transistor radios for smartphones, producing terrified parents who fear the influence of global virtual connections for their teenagers and also importantly, its own pop culture kings ascending their thrones as early as 19. We are ushered into another era of rock n roll, albeit led by timesharing we term, the information revolution, bagging its own youth subcultures that include tech culture and social media. And like rock n roll defined the baby boomer generation, information sharing and its tools have come to define millennials, equally presenting them opportunities to drive changes on many levels.
Young and Restless…and Fearless
The metrics though, are not all same, as the appearance of a similarly idealised generation with an again purported ‘specialness’ buoyed by a revolution, exhibiting great boldness and keenness in participating and spearheading this change through the creation of global scale consumer products, much different from their revolutionary predecessors who were instead, symbolized for the creation of vast consumer products. These comparisons mirror the impact of demographic shifts as it relates to business and as seen in the Baby Boomer generation. As the world witnessed a consumerism boost with more babies born in the post-war era, and now in the millennial generation, as it experiences a population aged below 30, accounting for 51% of its 7 billion number, consumerism effects are once more, proving to be nothing short of outstanding.
The impact of this size on business is being immensely felt, as their awareness of lesser job opportunities, and much less job stability than their majorly Baby Boomer parents, has produced challenges and opportunities. With the challenges come lesser income and spending power and with the opportunities, appear chances for globally induced income extractions leading to much larger earning capacities resulting in contemplation and jostle, to be in on the action. These opportunities, bolstered by information technology which as a vehicle has placed today’s generation on a fortunate pedestal to pedal the global economy, reconstruct social and economic landscapes, question norms and values, and dictate the relevance of consumer products and their delivery mechanisms.
With globalisation and digital interconnectivity fuelled by new media, they have in their hands, the tool to power sustainable growth and literally transform the world as we know it. The swiftness and ease in adopting new trends especially those tailored to or inspired by the information revolution culture, produced the baton exchange between Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in the space of two years as number one social media platform.The urge to muddle up within social communities for benefits, online learning, selecting jobs that grant workspace liberty, all create innumerable domino effects, further boosting an overtly rapturous crave for freebies than ever before, as millennials want all they can get for free, from movies to music, books, to even copyrighted content. The T-shirt economy, open source activism and the success of social media are direct offshoots of these desires, and the urge for cheaper goods and services is the engine powering the rise of collaborative consumption and the sharing economy.
These sensitiveness encroach on the future growth of superannuated industries like automobile, Cable TV and store retailing as ride and car-sharing services like Uber, Lyft and ZipCar are favoured, an expansion of entertainment consumption via smartphones and tablets with streaming services like Netflix, Youtube and Vine, and the constant rise of ecommerce.
Listening to the electrifying lyrics of Rock n roll great Neil Young’s, Restless Consumer, I was suddenly provided schematic insights into this hip and trendy generation. A song in no way created to mimic demographic generalities, described consumers from multitude lands, with multiple voices resounding as one, harbouring a ferocious demand and voracious appetite for anything sellable, cutting a perfect picture of the power, restlessness of millennials in an era that has provided them a tool that gives them a voice.
We witness capricious allegiances and wanton exhibitions in the quest to hop on the next ‘big thing’ ship sailing along, be it for leisure, to garner financial benefits or to intrusively dissect its pros and cons to recreate another must-do, must-have or must-follow fad. Fearlessness, – and astute restlessness, propelled by the deep seated longing for self-expression, for belonging and being known for something, most likely outlandish. Like rock n roll, information technology and its characteristic sub-cultures seem like the major route to fulfilling this high.
The Patrons, the Waiters and the Chefs
Chefs to waiters and finally to patrons; the routine course of restaurant meals, candidly categorize these hip-hoppers. As to some degree, most are aware technology avails everyone the opportunity to gobble up or offer services but only a fraction among them – the chefs, have chosen to create all forms of dishes on the menu and know that patrons will get addicted to products and services that feed their responsiveness and are doing everything possible to be of service.
The Google duo exemplifies this ambition as their engine has rolled out over 200 services from products or acquired companies and are poised to expanding that portfolio as indications show from their $USD17 billion spend in the past two years, a pace both old and new tech giants try to keep up with, while currently hosting over 1.3 million applications on Google play – an irresistible spread of technology delicacies. A host of these ideas create the ‘you are dead if you do not use this app’ impression, engendering a culpable feeling of being left behind, though many will still be out served by newer, free, cheaper or collaborative innovations in no distant time.
This is happening despite the arguable management knowledge that a business cannot be all things to the market, awaking arguable questions in core business divestiture; we watch a foundering replay with Google’s Motorola Mobility notwithstanding its overall astonishing success. But positively, these moves breed standout beneficiaries who utilise the successes for personal gains, driven by an eagerness to clasp exciting technology concepts before the masses as seen with the ever increasing Youtube, Vine, Blogspot and Twitter millionaires, serving advocacy and promotional dishes to individuals and the corporate sector for pay checks. Does this also serve as an opportunity to erase the burden of global unemployment in many quarters?
Yes, as they become ovens for the fostering of inclusive growth and job creation on large scales. We see strive for ascent by distributors like Sophia Amoruso, moving her second-hand clothing store from Ebay to launch teenage sensation online store, Nastygal and a full swing support of the sharing economy by mass number of millennials eager to utilise their social capital and consumer capacities to boost their resource strength. With the constant growth of these changes viewed as opportunities, they will congregate in amassing proportions on varying scopes across the globe to see their dreams become reality, increasing possible scale of impact for tech giants.
The Crush, Clash and Crash
This infatuation with the sharing economy has brought with it joys and pains; joys, as individuals can earn or benefit by collaboratively sharing excess resources within a community, and pains; as its business model is poised to upturn longstanding industries resulting in clashes between policy makers, regulatory bodies, established sectors and sharing platforms. Record success stories with global impact, spare room sharing, Airbnb and ride sharing, Uber have emerged, each presenting its own unique challenges to the marketplace with multiple fallouts including legal suits, professional restrictions, licensing and insurance debacles, job loss claims, union protests, strikes and bans – all of these happening across varying geographical locations in the world. Is this business model going to stand the test of time?
The global unemployment burden resulting in decreased spending power is a critical contributor for the approval nod by millennials. In spite of the clashes that may ensue or foreseeable sector crashes, it is viewed from laudable perspectives by patrons, that include efficiency enhancement, bettering of workers’ rights, distributive income for all, environmental friendliness through the promotion of everything recyclable – as long as it can be used by somebody else, creating tech startups like Tushare; for sharing and giving old clothes, swap and swaptree; for exchanging CDs, books, children clothing and taskrabbit; for errands and handy-jobs.
Such revolutionary goals feed Tesla’s open source rendezvous, juxtaposed with the fickle nature of technology patents and the carbon crisis. The growth inconsistencies of the car industry may be a major beneficiary of global car and ride sharing defiance as it loses its battle with cash starved millennials. As BlaBlacar has demonstrated through its cost efficiency and no-profit approach, short circuiting the regular upheavals, in the process granting it unhindered success as it enables intercity transportation of over 600,000 people monthly in ten cities, with a global goal after its $USD100 million funding, a presumed poisonous economic model may just be exhibiting a long awaited cure.
For Richer and for Poorer
This first of its kind venture capital round in a France-based startup depicts the optimism reflected by the market about the global information technology frontier despite apparent odds arising from technology applications’ transition into modern business status quo. Creating thought-chanting investors avowing to see profitability by betting for successful business outcomes in the face of newer cyberspace products. The frenzy generated by the $USD1.5 million funding of the Yo! App on $USD10 million valuation, accentuates this as the financing question metamorphoses from ‘how do I get funded?’ to ‘when do I get funded?’
We are presented with a future business environment where funding will be available for ideas – even those unworthy, a dilemma investors will be willing to borne as long as it presents the slightest open door to staying ahead of the pack. They know that it is easier to get rich and yet easier to get poor in this century, leaving us peering at a ‘for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer’ scenario. Once again, the revolutionary advantage stretches its hand in support of a restless generation and while this position demands mindedness, it is a welcome note in emerging economies where non-existent to poor credit rating have long impeded business funding access, much less for tech ideas.
Should VCs hunt in the untapped and often neglected terrain of emerging third world economies? Yes, they should. A step traditional banking and private equity firms need embody to fund innovations and the localization of already successful global ideas as enabled in developed markets. The agitation to get what they want, when they want it is opening doors, as millennials understand that by sticking together they can win on multifaceted levels which they had earlier been overlooked or deemed under experienced to flex their muscles or not availed the opportunities to do so.
Setting crowd funding afloat, a collaborative model of technology driven financing, giving life to Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Kiva and Crowdrise to help fund ideas, projects, businesses and social causes formal financing would not get to fund, providing millions a chance for success generated by collaborative fund pools. Has there ever been a better time in history to start a business? Never! Startups can leverage on low-cost advertising focused on target-specific markets on social and collaborative platforms to advocate brand growth in the face of stringent funds.
Paypal shrugged…and wants a chunk
I scribbled on my browser, “Where the heck do we get funding?” out of sheer frustration and out popped a Mass Challenge advertorial. The world’s largest startup accelerator and competition, boasting backers like Verizon, Oracle and Microsoft with objectives to addressing seed-stage investment gap and promoting innovation and collaboration locally and internationally, was a divine find. Literally racing against time to submit our most pressing idea within a two-day deadline, I encountered a barrier trying to send the initial $USD100 payment as PayPal was the payment gateway integration linking the regular debit cards. “Wasted labour of hard, sacrificial two-day work”, I thought, until I was notified of a waiver to continue my application. When asked to rate the entire submission process, “I don’t think PayPal has to block a whole country because of fraudulent activities perpetrated by some Nigerians…” my comment ensued.
Seven months after this incidence, PayPal wheels into Nigeria, as tag team partner of First Bank, Nigeria’s biggest Bank and Africa’s 15th largest. PayPal shrugged, and for good reason. ‘Yahoo! boys’ a pseudonym for online scammers as Yahoo emails happened to be the go-to tool to prey on unsuspecting ‘magas’ (derogatory slang used to define European or American internet users quick to fall for balloon ventures or love) with an aim to extorting monies from them. Indigent acts that germinated into a cultural phenomenon among youngsters leading to the blacklisting of the country in activating PayPal transactions.
Nigeria, a culturally diverse nation possessing 514 languages according to Greenberg diversity index with exceptional economic prospects as Africa’s largest population and economy, boasting 170 million people with 78% aged 35 and below and a GDP of $USD509.9 billion but riddled with countless malaise – a lot youth borne, sufficient to hinder companies from entering an emerging market with such robust consumerism and growing middle class advantages. Multitudinous hiccups dogging emerging economies especially those with high youth populations, adapting to a variety of hydra-headed challenges could be the line between success and failure as the onus is on companies to innovatively build strategies that apply to each turf.
MasterCard’s tripartite aggressiveness in working with governments, private and social sectors in Nigeria echoes this as the lack of social security and poor credit rating is being tackled with the launch of a national identity debit card, private partnerships with financial institutions and the MasterCard Foundation’s impact through social entrepreneurship. With PayPal losing its position as the Atlas of third party payment processing to Alibaba’s Alipay which transacted a whopping $USD150 billion in 2013, its lethargy to innovate upon challenges prove too pricey after all. Poor governance structures, handicap infrastructure, corruption, insurgencies, kidnappings, Ebola, HIV or Lassa fever, hampering corporate expansions into emerging markets could be tantamount to not doing business in America because of epileptic gun laws or racial stereotyping, China for internet censorship, India for its inability to curb gang raping or Russia for freezing temperatures. As oil multinational, Shell sells $USD5 billion worth of its Nigerian assets as a result of pipeline sabotage by sponsored youth, the looming question of when to shut a profitable door persists.
The Ayes Have it!
More than ever, we encounter the dominance of social issues as a large play of multifaceted demands and challenges hit businesses with the voice of the majority determining outcomes, whistleblowing through technology channels. The backlash leading to the resignation of Mozilla CEO, Brendan Eich for his support of Prop 8 legislation, invalidating gay marriage is such drawback. Charged to increase brand value, threats of employee resignations, projected revenue slump from aggrieved users moving to competitive browsers and volunteers and donors investment withdrawals would instead have diminished returns. Ex-Communications Director for InterActiveCorp, Justine Sacco’s twitter gaffe connecting Africa with AIDS caused worldwide embarrassment to a company hosting top online products favoured by millennials like Vimeo, Twoo and Ask.com and her, her job.
The lingering gap between male and female CEO salaries proves to be another social issue for discourse as women receive 17% less than their male counterparts fostering management gender bias. We see the voice of the masses also influencing corporate consciousness on climate change, energy-efficient solutions, and political correctness on race, religious and cultural beliefs. Armed with collective self-motivation which demands the best from products, consumer markets, governments and even themselves, we see an un-keenness to maintain loyalties with situations or structures deemed un-evolutionary. An expanding technology CEO-base amongst millennials will brew a balanced mixture of competitiveness and social consciousness to positively wrestle controversies crossing business lines.
We must be Born Again!
Tech culture, a baby we strive to decipher, has presented vast terrain of opportunities that guarantee success, and complexities that warrant as much failures. Some of the challenges include the unpredictability trailing information technology businesses as they entrust ‘Expertise foresight’ meagre opening for infallibility, the influence of information technology on business which has provided millennials room to lead global conglomerates, the revolutionary trends of the Sixties impact on business of today and tomorrow, and the imperativeness in localizing global models to suit market-specific challenges.
The opportunities are strong as elusiveness of IT-based startups have undeterred investor spirits, critical factors feeding millennial responsiveness towards collaborative consumption models despite sectorial hiccups and the influence of new media on social issues that cross-cut business lines. As such, a perception rebirth is imperative. With millennials leading the charge in utilizing the IT revolution as a formidable business instrument, the extremism of rock n roll will be brought to bear on the businesses they run.
It is of legend that while Sam Phillips, CEO, Sun Records received a call, Bill and Elvis fooled around with blues tune ‘That’s All Right Mama’, Elvis caricaturing and singing exaggeratedly and Bill banging his fiddle. Scampering back, Sam had them redo it while recording; the sound he had longed craved was born – Rockabilly, an anomaly of an original genre championed by two seasoned artists. Born by a novice singer Sam was reluctant to work with, who went on to become the greatest artist of all time, selling 500 million albums and defining rock n roll.
Rockabilly-ty; the ability to utilize improvisations to strategically build on business success. It is the ability to be misunderstood but maintain fierceness and dexterity to generate success after success.
The stripping and whipping of girl-slave, Patsey in the Oscar winning depiction of slavery, 12 Years a Slave melts into butter, the hardest of hearts. But then, the argument by Platt and Elisa, both unjustly made slaves, climaxed into one word which paints a futuristic picture of the information technology run business world – Survive!
This hounding word will lead, in a century where once admired giant, Blackberry spiralled out of control after being hit by cyclones of technological advancements in mobile telephony. Like Elisa, falling into despair at mega losses and putting up for sale, a platform that controlled the very soul of the world’s youth like only a great puppeteer could muster. But like Platt, the very sense or un-reason for a damn stroke of opportunity in the face of grave impossibilities led to the availing of talents that were only bound to keep him most relevant to the Master, presenting within itself, a craving for strategically thought-out, albeit heart wrenching, prolonged survival. Acquisitions to maintain relevance is rife on all spheres; Monsato’s Climate Corporation, Microsoft’s Skype, Facebook’s Occulus, Twitter’s Vine etc.
With S&P500 lifespan averaging 17 years, history is being revisited as businesses aim to be everything to the market, the results will produce colossal successes; Facebook’s Instagram, catastrophic wastages; Google’s Motorola, and an outrunning of the mother ship; Ebay’s Paypal. Can we say what the chefs will be fixing up next? What the patrons will be ordering? Will they stick with Instagram or favour Justin Bieber funded Shots? We can’t, neither can Experts.
Quizzed by an acquaintance on my seeming relegation of Engineering for Strategy, the answer was simple – Engineering is strategy and strategy is engineering. The analysis and design of structures to ascertain structural integrity based on physical laws and empirical knowledge of the structural performance of different materials and geometries, in the process making creative and efficient use of funds, structural elements and materials to achieve these goals is structural engineering. And strategy, a highly developed plan of activity for an organization to adapt to its environment or compete to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty and limited resources.
Likewise, the processes that determine the final outcome of a building are no less different from the ideas deployed in strategizing a business into existence from an abstract concept or shaping the future of an existing business. Again, I am wont to view as myopic, proponents of studying only subjects which fit into career paths, a probable good case for specialists but a rather poor one for business. As a backlog of rich knowledge roundedness is essential to creating a strategic work of genius; the engine conglomerates need to survive and then, thrive.
Business, a science of creating numbers as well as an art of creating appeal, demands experience as well as juvenile delinquency. Steve Jobs, a man misunderstood in many ways, a scientist as much as an artist, who propounded as much as he created. A genius who understood the fleeting, magical nature of the human mind – one longing for a miracle, for something beyond it, at its peak in childhood and then youth. Excelling in cross-sectors, this dexterity, Apple’s power in today’s business world. Creators, investors and experts, need brace up for the opportunities and challenges of the future. It is survival. It is dexterity. It is the thin line between life and death. It is Rockabilly-ty.
Koko Ombu, is cofounder and Lead Strategist at idea portfolio management company, Infinite Impact Ltd, www.wesellideas247.com She was selected by LEAP Africa and Business in Africa Magazine, South Africa as 101 Young African Leaders at the African Business Leaders Forum, Accra, Ghana in 2007.
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