Tag Archives: Entrepreneurship

Ten Steps to Progress from the Business Idea Stage

July 17, 2012 Esha Abrol Leave a comment

Just over the past week, I’ve received quite a few e-mails with the same question: “Esha, I have a business idea, what do I do next?” Firstly, I’m flattered that these folks reached out to me on this – honoured to be a part of your great ideas. I wanted to share my response for others in the same position.

Based on my expereince, I’ve developed a list of the things I usually do after a light-bulb moment, things I do before I even think about developing the business plan:

1) Define exactly what the business idea is
However, don’t go too far at this stage to avoid misusing efforts in case you realize you don’t want to pursue the idea. Misusing efforts can cause frustration and sensations of failure and this negative energy will make one think twice when one has another “light-bulb moment”. You want your brain to associate “business idea” with positive energy instead. The biggest mistake here is not pursuing an idea out of fear of failing.

2) Be able to define your mission
The mission is something that should go beyond the product itself. I had great conversations with Scott Annan, of Mercury Grove and Nazim Ahmed, of DNA11 and CanvasPop – these two are great examples of Ottawa entrepreneurs who exemplify this in their companies and personalities.

Bringing an idea into fruition is hard. You will face many barriers. How to remain motivated and inspired? Don’t develop a business idea based on the money you will be able to collect; base the business on something you feel you can do well, something you want talk about all the time, something you want to tell everyone about, something you genuinely care about. I think the hardest part is realizing what that “something” is.

3) Draw out the business model
Keep it simple – the aim is to ensure your idea makes business sense by illustrating/visualizing the key business components (You can Google a business model template or email me for a copy of the template I use)

4) Look for feedback
Share the insights from the above three steps with entrepreneurial minds to receive different perspectives. I like to ask people who are completely different than me – different age groups, different stages in their career, different personalities. Networking events for entrepreneurs are the best place for this because you can talk to tons of different people and its good way to practice the pitch. LinkedIn and Twitter have also worked for me. I also make sure to ask people I know well too. At this stage, be open-minded and receive feedback as a gift.

5) Analyze the different perspectives from the feedback received.
This stage shouldn’t change your mind about the idea, but will help you realize things you didn’t think of before. You’ll receive really interesting questions that will force you to think about things you didn’t and will help strengthen the idea should you decide to pursue it.

6) Meet with potential customers
If you decide to pursue, meet with the potential customers to ensure their feedback is used in shaping the product – get their “stamp of approval” and do everything you can to get them to pre-order – get them to commit to paying you for the product. If this happens, then you know you want to pursue the idea. At this stage, I like to remember Steve Jobs’ perspectives on customer feedback. As a past researcher, his thoughts on market research completely resonate with me – research should always be taken with a grain of salt. Intuition shouldn’t be ignored.

7) Look for the help/expertise you may need
If you’re not a programmer, don’t try to learn how to program so you can do it yourself. Stick to what you’re good at. Meeting people has become easier with the number of networking events in the City. Check-out EventBrite and Twitter for events.

8) Look for funding opps
I don’t look to secure funding at this point, but like to know what’s out there and start talking to investors to receive feedback on what they are looking for.

9) Try to pick-up media attention
A tough one. But, would be a great way to gather more insights on the impact your business will have – the reaction (or lack of) members may be a good indicator. The more disruptive the idea, the better!

10) I would say the last thing should be the business plan
Although they are unpleasant and painful to put together, they’re important, but I don’t think you need to develop one until you compelte the steps above. Once you’re ready, here’s a post I did on the importance of a business plan: “How To Fix RIM!”

Entrepreneurial Culture

Celebrating Entrepreneurial Spirit in Ottawa

June 22, 2011 Esha Abrol Leave a comment

It’s 1:00am, while reciting positive self-talk as I try to fall asleep… Eureka! I’ve come-up with the most amazing business idea that will, without a doubt, change the world. I translate the images in my mind into words, as I type what I’m thinking into my iPhone notepad.

Excellent, now I’ll get some sleep and tomorrow, change the world.

It’s 6:00 a.m. the next morning, before the morning jog, I review the notes I took a few hours ago and question my sanity. “How am I going to implement this?”. Unfortunately, “reality” kicks in.

My name is Esha and I’m an entrepreneur and 1/3 of the Avacano team. As we countdown until the launch of our latest start-up, Avacano, I wanted to take some time to share progress. The soft launch will be held on Monday, June 27th, at 7:00pm. Do register to celebrate entrepreneurship with Avacano: http://avacano.eventbrite.com/

The Team: Behzad Malek, Dominque Noisette, and me. We’re from Ottawa, Canada.

We’ve been working quite diligently on our business, Avacano, not only do we want to promote our business, but we also want to promote entrepreneurship in Ottawa because Ottawa’s got talent, and as Desiderius Erasmus once said, “no one respects a talent that is concealed.”

Today, let’s talk about the unfortunate ”reality” I mentioned earlier. Ottawa has been described as the next “Silicon Valley”. I feel very fortunate to live in a city with many entrepreneurial minds. A lot of ideas. Unfortunately, commercialization, not so much.

What is this “reality” that comes in the way of ideas crystallizing? Is it lack of funding? Is it risk-averse attitudes? Perhaps lack of networking opportunities or lack of confidence? Hard to say. However, I do think perceptions and mindset has a lot to do with it.

My Speaking Opportunity at Operation Come Home

Last week I was invited to speak to a group of young people, from ages 17-19, about entrepreneurship. I think it’s unfortunate that often young people feel that starting a business is something that is too out-of-reach. Because “starting a business” sounds hard, doesn’t it? How about “doing what you love”? Now, that actually sounds fun. I feel this resonated with the bright group of students I had the chance to chat with. The feedback I got was “It was cool to learn that it is doable at a young age”.

At Avacano, we get to do what we love everyday. We want to encourage you to do the same. Avacano is about customer-focus, confidence in our value proposition, hard-work, and contributing to the development of future advancements. We think challenges are fun. A few months ago, we were able to identify a problem in a specific market, brainstormed ideas, and just did it. We developed a unique, yet simple communications solutions, offering organizations with an efficient and effective option to build relationships with customers.

While growing this, it is not unlikely that we will come-up with other cool ideas at 1:00am while counting sheep or reciting positive self-talk. The next day, we will implement. Because the reality is, we can, and you can too.

“Attitude determines the altitude of life.” – Edwin Louis Cole.

Cheers, Esha

Entrepreneurial Culture

Entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley

February 26, 2009 Esha Abrol Leave a comment

How do you measure success in start-up?

I’m going guess that the most popular answers would include: sales, profit, and cashflow.

But what about personal gain? Experience, contacts, character development, and knowledge gained.

Why is Silicon Valley, California a region of such commendable innovation? Is the region populated with only ambitious entrepreneurs that never make mistakes? That would be great. Silicon Valley is made up of many intelligent, ambitious people, but – of course, everyone makes mistakes. Many projects fail, businesses fail. So how does Silicon Valley do it?

Not only is the culture of Silicon Valley promote innovation and the implementation of off-the-wall, risky ideas – they are also open to sharing mistakes made and lessons learned in business. During the process of creating something from scratch, omissions can occur, and do occur. Upon unfavorable implementations, entering a state of hibernation to avoid comments like, “I told you so” from cynical friends is not an option. Rather than hiding or fearing competitors moving ahead with knowledge of what ‘not-to-do’, the idea of the industry moving forward has been adopted. As competitors learn of ineffective strategies, leapfrogging becomes a great benefit for the industry as a whole and the consumers. Change and improvement is embraced with a sense of pride for start-ups that flop. I suppose you can say these flops are digested with a healthy dose of salt. The lessons learned hold a high importance, ultimately… making flops respectable…

A couple of years ago, during a conference with Mr. Michael Dell, the words that stood out most for me were: “Learn from your mistakes”. We’ve heard this before, realizing the importance of these words is major.

Personal gain, in terms of lessons learnt is something that can not be taught or fully understood through the exchange of words. Compensation in the form of experience as an entrepreneur and character development is often underrated with entrepreneurs that do not succeed with one specific project. Many may not realize that it is not unusual if it takes more than one try to finally create the winning product/service. All entrepreneurs I’ve had the opportunity to meet, persistence, passion, and discipline have been three common attributes – in my opinion, the three most important attributes.

A part of Silicon Valley’s success comes from the strong network of like-minded people and experiences shared. The skills that entrepreneurs bring to the table are valued and respected. Creating an open network, allowing entrepreneurs to embrace ideas and concepts that work and concepts that don’t, is essential to the success and development of a region.

The importance of learning from a mistake is not easy. I think it’s important we remember that, moving forward and using the knowledge, experience, and network gained to re-strategize is an opportunity to be capitalized on.