Business Strategy Archives – Page 19 of 38

17 Oct 2011

Lean Startup 2 – Growing and Staying Lean

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-04T14:55:04-06:00October 17th, 2011|Categories: Books and Courses, Business Strategy, Doug's Blog|

I’ve finished reading “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries that I discussed on my last post.

Part 3 of the book talks about:

Batch – Continuing to work in small batches. Avoid the large batch “death spiral” and other lessons applied from Lean manufacturing.
Grow – The three primary engines of growth and the importance to pick one and focus on it until success (and eventual market saturation) or you prove it won’t work (pivot). Essentially the reason is that the expertise is vastly different for each and it is hard enough to measure and grow one at a time.

[…]

5 Oct 2011

The Lean Startup – Measure, Learn and Adapt

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:44:01-06:00October 5th, 2011|Categories: Books and Courses, Business Strategy, Doug's Blog|

I am about two thirds of the way finished reading "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries. I was already coming to some of the same conclusions as part of my thinking and reading on entrepreneurship; his book helped me solidify things and fleshed in more of the details of implementation.

Essentially, starting a business (especially a high tech one) is a crapshoot. You come up with a brilliant idea. Then you make a business plan or strategy that incorporates some large (leaps of faith) and small assumptions about your product, your customers, the market uptake, revenue and profits. When you are […]

28 Sep 2011

Customer Testimonials

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:44:09-06:00September 28th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog|

I was recently asked to write a testimonial by the owner of a dance studio. I think people like to know what others think of a business or service and I am really happy with the studio so here is what I wrote.

"I have been taking Canadian Step Dancing classes at Dance Through Life since it opened and prior to that with Paula at another location. I didn’t have any prior dance experience when I started so it was a bit of a shocker to get those feet moving correctly. From personal experience I know not everyone is born with coordination […]

27 Sep 2011

Only 24 Hours in a Day? Really?

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:44:15-06:00September 27th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

Are there really only 24 hours in a day?

I am an eternal optimist when comes to thinking I can do anything; as much as I want. My brain tries come up with ways to get more time in a day. Maybe I can sleep a little less. Maybe if I work harder I can get everything done. Yet there is a price to pay. A trade-off for every choice you make. And there is always something more.

Still, there are only 24 hours in a day.

Work. Relationships. Health. Recreation. Hobbies. Self-improvement. You need to be balanced or you will eventually pay the toll […]

19 Jul 2011

Are You Working on the Business?

By Doug Wagner|2017-05-24T13:03:07-06:00July 19th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Working on the Business|Tags: business, business advice, business growth, business strategy, business success, Dysfunctional Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, leadership, small business, small business owner, strategy, success, Working on the Business|

What does working on the business really mean?

As a business owner (or entrepreneur) you spend a lot of time working to build your business. You are:

Finding new customers,
Keeping existing customers happy,
Providing your product or service to customers,
Hiring good people,
Retaining your employees,
Keeping on top of the finances,
Putting out fires,
And generally growing your business.

And many business owners can generate a lot of revenue and even profit doing the above. They may even significantly grow their businesses.

So isn’t that […]

28 Jun 2011

Top Challenges for Businesses – Top 5 List

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-04T14:58:43-06:00June 28th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

In my prior post I listed 15 business challenges and received another eight (8) and counting additional ideas from the crowd. When I wrote the list I purposely stated similar problems a few different ways to see if they would form “bunches” in the responses.

Based on preliminary feedback (I’ll post an updated list later in the summer), the following are the top 5 statements/challenges:

Hiring good people and long-term employee retention; having the right people.
The people in the business are so busy with serving customers and keeping the business alive they don’t have time to work on the […]

23 Jun 2011

Happy 11th Anniversary Sunwapta Solutions!

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:45:09-06:00June 23rd, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Doug's Blog|

Wow, 11 years.

As they say, I wish I knew then what I know now.

We started out as a software development consulting firm. We moved into building and managing hosted applications for our customers and their clients. Over 150,000 employees have had access to tools we have built at companies with pretty impressive credentials.

Then we built and sold our first hosted application (PenForms) obtaining well over 40% of the available market. Near as we can tell, we have the largest market share out of our competitors, largely because we had a good product and good customer service. The biggest thing we got […]

16 Jun 2011

Top Challenges for Businesses

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-04T15:01:02-06:00June 16th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Leadership|

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the power of crowd sourcing.

I’ve compiled a list of business challenges that are all somewhat related but stated in different ways for people in different situations. We are looking at getting some feedback to support some of our marketing and product development efforts. Leave a comment or contact us directly, we’d love to hear from you.

Which of the following can you relate to personally the most? Which do you think are the most prevalent and compelling for businesses in general?

80% of businesses fail within 5 years. That number repeats again […]

26 May 2011

The Slippery Slope of Being a Horse Trader

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:45:45-06:00May 26th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Leadership|

Back in the old days, horse traders were the equivalent of used car salesmen today.

Their business model was to buy horses cheap and sell them high. Reputable horse traders dealing with knowledgeable buyers were as close to a fair transaction as you could get. But in reality there were many not so reputable sellers and often buyers didn't have all of the skills or knowledge to price a horse correctly; buyer beware. As the saying goes, "a fool and his money are soon parted."

When you start or buy a business there are two ways of making money when you sell it.

Type […]

24 May 2011

The “Real” World Doesn’t Exist

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:45:51-06:00May 24th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

Ok, the real world does exist… sort of.

The problem is that there is no truly objective way for people to observe it.

We all see the world through our senses which are interpreted by our brains and rationalized through our view of the world.

My reality is different than your reality. Nothing is real and everything is real. If your brain says it is real, for you it is real.

Say I'm riding public transit and see some drunk men acting obnoxiously and see them as slightly dangerous. My interpretation. The person sitting beside me sees the same men out having fun and […]