Connecting People and Planet – Investing in entrepreneurs to build a sustainable world
Or “Whatever can go wrong will go wrong”. Our first order for a solar hot water system came through today at SolarPay.com.au. Yipee. However, it fell within the 5% of cases that cannot be quoted through our website. Worse, we had not covered that instance. So our very first client got a quote that is not quite correct. So why am I welcoming that? Because it makes our application all the better. We can take it as feedback, learn from it and improve what we are delivering.
Producing events always meant that we had a clear deadline. The date for the event was clear at the start of the preparations. It was great, it took out one of the variables in what the event could be like. In business, it is a lot more flowing. It is very easy to fall into the trap of improving, rather than getting something out there. It is probably one of the inventor diseases. To overcome that, I set a date: 31 May 2008, the date of our launch. And to make it even more serious, we committed to being…
I have just come back from a mentoring session. One business presents itself, outlining a major issue they have. 12 mentors ask questions of fact, then give their viewpoint. It is so amazing to see how blind some entrepreneurs can become from being stuck in the day to day operations. Every suggestion from the mentors was answered by the entrepreneur with an explanation of why that was not possible or that they are doing that already. That brings me back to my frustration with inventors. They do not seem to listen. And I guess we probably all have a…