What are the 3 most important things that you or your Business need to really succeed?

Bob Smith Consulting to Boards, CEO's and Key Management Teams, Strategic Investor and Fast Growth Companies

April 26th, 2015

If you can eliminate personal limits, you can increase the odds of success. Things like fear of failure, or not wanting to look foolish to family or friends, or concern that you won't live up to your own standards, or a host of other things can make us hold ourselves back.

In my own business I have to remain connected to what prospective customers need or want.

Also, I have to identify have meeting those needs really makes possible for them.

Finally, I have to make sure that my business and financial approach is sustainable so that I can follow through on my promises.

This is what let's me be unreasonable about asking for help or asking questions or challenging my own thinking. I make it about the Customers and the health of my Business well into the future.

I would really appreciate your thinking whether it aligns or disrupts my own.

Lane Campbell Lifelong Entrepreneur

April 26th, 2015

Harper Reed taught me to fall in love with the problem I'm trying to solve for my customer and not my solution. If you are providing a service that means becoming a master at the trade. If your are building a product that means fix the issue best as you can then ship, ship, ship and listen to your customers to improve.

Thomas Sutrina Inventor at Retired Pursue Personal interrests and family

April 27th, 2015

After determining, not guessing, what the customer wants and what they are willing to pay for it. The products design team goes to work. Either you will believe you are capable of providing that product or not. If you choose to provide the product then you face the risk of actually doing it. The hardest thing to do is to stick to the customers requirements that you defined. The vast majority of the products that fail in the market compromised on the customer's wants and the price they are willing to pay. So it is better to stop when you find an insurmountable problem then continue to spend time and money toward a market failure. Now often the needs and price a customer will pay when the specification is written places a higher need and lower price then what the marketing research has indicated. This padding can be removed.

I have found that insurmountable problems occur on the path chosen and at the time tunnel vision prevents seeing other paths. Tunnel vision will exist as long as you are pushing forward. So to Stop is to give you and your team the opportunity to broaden their vision and bring in others to find the alternate path. My most successful products were by following paths other then the initial one. You learn so much about the product in the process of following the original path that can be applied to the replacement path that you often end up with a better product.

Yariv Adan YouTube Advertising and Monetization Product Manager at Google

April 27th, 2015

1) Make sure you are adressing a real problem/opportunity, which is important enough for people to care about it and invest (time/money/etc) in a solution for it, big enough (could be measured in different ways - users, businesses, money, etc) for you to care about, and hard enough to solve to allow you to differentiate your solution (best if the product itself is differentiated, but could also be execution, partnerships that you have, etc). It's critical that the above is well articulated as your mission statement, and that if asked - all leaders in your company will be able to say it.

2) Have a clear strategy and roadmap you can always check against and ensure that your current assumptions still hold and that your current execution still follow it. Strategy sang roadmap can be at a high level, and it's fine not to follow it (I.e in a fast moving market), but I think it's critical that you do it consciously, and not going down some slippery slope.

3) The people you hire and execution. I think that these are by far are the most important, since many successful companies pivot / expand their strategy and product. It's actually their ability to do so is what makes them successful in the long run imho. But getting these two right is easier said than done. It requires the company to have a corporate DNA with values that are dominant in every function and aspect (from the hiring criteria, through the office design, rewarding and promotion system, internal and external communication style and policy, product design principles, red tape and hierarchy, etc). Values/principles which I think are critical are: data and measurablity at the core of every goal and decision, innovation (nailing this one right is a topic by itself and touches sharing/open culture, ability to experiment and fail/learn quickly, effective communication channels, the red tape and hierarchy angle, etc).

i will finally :) end with a short point on the most important point there - the team you hired. Have a thought through hiring process, and never compromise on your hiring bar. A good team makes everything possible, and it's better to not yet have the right person with you, than to have the wrong one.

K.Lakshmi Davey Senior Business Executive at Zoho Corporation

April 26th, 2015

The Market - The Infrastructure - The Process

John Zamoiski Chief Opportunity Officer at ADLarge Media

April 27th, 2015

In my experience of founding, growing and selling three businesses, I have found that there are actually four keys to success:

1. Development of a clear and concise understanding of your own business and its objectives and expressing that in a way that is easily communicated and understood by your targets, whether they be B2B or B2C.
2. Commitment to a focused constant communications program (direct, pr, advertising, social media) that consistently reminds your target markets of the advantages and benefits of your product or service.
3. Involvement in the leadership of organizations that are focused on areas where your product or service can have an impact....key potential customers.
4. Building of a sales team who understand the product or service and can translate that understanding into solutions for the wants and needs of the target markets.

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