Monday, December 30, 2013
50 Famous Leadership Quotes from Successful Entrepreneurs
Don't Look for the Next Opportunity. The One You Have in Hand is the Opportunity
Do we have to wait for success? How long do we have to wait for the real absolute opportunity? Well, the next opportunity would not probably happens. During our current projects, when we make mistakes and all things gone terribly wrong and everything tend to get worst and messy.
In the end, what we always do is give up and just get over it. To straighten all the mistakes, we make a false promise that the next jobs would be a good one and it will be the real opportunity for improvement.
However, the same situation loops consistently and we are still waiting for the right choice to execute the right move. The waiting continues and follow us until the dead end. Ended up like a total losers.
What is in your desk right now is the actual opportunity. Bring the ultimate efforts and determination and do your best now not then. It is the time now. Don't look for the next opportunity, the one you have in hand is the opportunity.
Quote by Paul Arden from the book "It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be"
Content insight by Redzuan Harris, Cariblogger.com
Communicating Creatively with Customers
Businesses that know how to effectively communicate with their customers typically outperform their competitors. Consumers have become more savvy and require more engagement than ever before. It's important to consider that every customer is different, but there are some genuine factors that improve the quality of any service provided. That starts with how you communicate with your customers, but it's important to understand the new and exciting ways you can do that.
The Amazing "Social Media"
Lately, the entire concept of social networking and social media has become a focal point in online customer interaction. Customers online become accustomed to seeing a strong social media presence from all of the businesses whose services he or she uses. Social media tools include Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin, and the blog world. It's important for a company to have a strong following in each of these areas of networking in order to reach a wide audience and to appear to the rest of the world that other people are using and enjoying the service your business provides. There are a wide variety of social media strategies, and many are time consuming. It's important to gauge the level of social media your business needs before pursuing it further.
Communicate All the Time
Companies that are constantly communicating with their customers are giving them the information he or she needs, when he or she needs it. Many successful and prominent businesses send text messages online to all of their contacts. Over time, these businesses acquire a vast amount of user information and contact methods. More recently, online registration forms have been including an area to input phone numbers. This is another way of being able to communicate with customers. According to CBC/Radio-Canada, almost 92% of online consumers use a cell phone. This means that a simple text message can reach almost every single customer in a business and convey to them important information.
Email is Still King
Although not considered modern and exciting, email is still one of the best ways to communicate with customers. Emails can influence customers' feelings toward a company and its services. They are also used to provide information, distribute surveys, and create special email-only promotions. Emails go directly into a customer's inbox, which makes the conversation almost personal. Successful businesses have advanced email forms and newsletters that captivate an audience. Structuring emails so that they emit a positive response will keep users satisfied and assured that they picked the right company.
Reap the Rewards
A successful business can reach out to a wide audience of customers and convince them to spend money. In a marketplace that grows more complex and connected on a daily basis, customers are craving information that is attractive and doesn't waste their time. If a company can use communication tools to perfect this, it will receive a direct increase in customers and revenue.
By Juan Harris, Cariblogger.com
Do Not Seek Praise. Seek Criticsm
Appraisal is pleasing. Indeed. People are more likely to seek for praise than criticism. We tends to be a pretender rather to be a critical. We love to filter out all the bad and get to hear what we want to hear. If you have produced a piece of work, you will get your colleague of friends for approval and get other people to say good thing about it. What about criticism?
"Please tell me you like my works".
"I don't like people who don't appreciate my jobs".
"I think my work is better".
It probably OK to seek for praise. But it is better to crave for criticism. Try to view from other perspective. Don't see what good you have done, get to find what are the better things that you should have done.
"Whats wrong with it?".
"How can I make this better?".
"What are the things that you don't like about it?".
Try to convert your question and get to know the negative side of your ideas. You may get more improvement's ideas to make it better. Do Not Seek Praise. Seek Criticism.
Quote by Paul Arden from the book "It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be"
Content insight by Redzuan Harris, Cariblogger.com
Books Every Startup Founder Should Read
Are you a startup founder? Do you need advice on what to do next but don’t know where to start looking? Do you feel like giving up on your company? Many startup companies do not last long because, after the company is started, founders and/or co-founders do not know what to do next.
They are stuck in the beginning and don’t know how to get to the next level, having received incorrect advice or they have not been advised at all. No growth can take place because you are stuck in the positions for too long.
The best way to move forward, is to gain some knowledge and then apply it. As they say, ‘Knowledge is power’; so knowledge without action is rendered powerless. It is not enough to know. You have to do something with what you have received.
Here is a list of some of the best books on the market for any startup founder. Whether you like to read or not, should not influence your decision on whether you are going read these books. In these books are some great strategies on how to make your company a great success. That should be your number one reason for reading these books.
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
This has become the second bible to most startup founders. If you are dedicated to effectively and efficiently building a business, this is the book to read. Lean manufacturing inspired all of the great lessons found in the book.
Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki
If you want some all-in-one start up advice, take some time out to read this 500-page book. It will be worth it. It may take you some time, but it will be worth it.
The Founder’s Dilemmas by Noah Wasserman
As a startup founder, you will face some common problems. Wasserman insightfully gives some great advice on how to deal with these.
Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson
Johnson outlines seven guiding principles in this book. They are applicable not only to startups but everywhere. If you follow these principles, you could come up with some great ideas to make company a success.
The Intelligent Entrepreneurby Bill Murphy
The book chronicles the stories of three graduates (all from Harvard’s Business School) and their businesses. Some great one are ‘Start-up as a couple’, ‘Founders’ relationships with investors’, and ‘Business model pivots and other personal accounts’.
Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson
The author is the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Wired. In the book, Anderson explains why freemium is the future of technology business.
Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore
When you launch, your product sales will go up. In the course of time, sales can decrease. In this book Moore explains why this is. He also explains how you can prevent your product from completely disappearing by adjusting your marketing strategy at certain times.
Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur
The book visually shows visual patterns of the common business model; it opens your mind to the business end of what you are building.
Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston
This book features interviews with the likes of Max Levchin (Paypal), Steve Wozniak (Apple), Stephen Kaufer (TripAdviror), Joshua Schachter (del.icio.us) and more. This book will make you realize that even these great companies all had to start somewhere and they all had their challenges. Today they are a huge success, yours can be too. You also get to see things from the founders’ perspective.
The Startup Playbook by David S. Kidder
The book contains some key practices, behaviours and ideas for success. Key founders like Caterina Fake (Flickr and Hunch), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Sara Blakely (Spanx) and many more also share some great advice for startup founders.
Start-up: A Resource Book of The Founder by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf
The book shows you, step by step, how to create your new business. It also contains the management of the startup projects course.
The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki
This book is a definite guide for anyone who wants to start anything. It lays out all the tactics of bootstrapping, branding, rainmaking, positioning, recruiting, and pitching.
Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh
The book as an account of the success of Zappos, what the founders and employees went through and how they ultimately came up with their winning strategy. A great book if you feel like you are ready to give up on your company.
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
This book is known as one of the best known motivational books. It is also the first one of its kind. Since first published 1936, it has been ‘updated’ quite a few times. If you want to get the best of what the author has to offer in this book, find a copy that was published before the 1960’s. It will be worth all of your efforts.
Summary
Some of the authors of these books, gave a vivid description of what it takes to make a success of your startup company. They shared their own personal stories, or relayed those of others. Whether you are in the beginning stages of your startup or not, I’m sure you will be able to find a book, even in this list, that will help you at the level that you are now.
"I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves"
E.M. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, 1951.
By Leandre de Bruyn, Cariblogger.com
It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know
After reading this chapter, It makes me feel bloated. Here are the situations. You are a talented and knowledgeable IT professional. You have an impressive and outstanding skills that makes you big score on your salary and earn company respect. Despite of your infamous fame in the company, you are shy and polite person. Love to stay alone not socialize. Nobody knows you.
Your friend, however, is just a plain person, less knowledge and lack of IT skills. But great in knowing and getting around people inside and outside the company. Your friend, print a business card and with good words and socialize with people. Been accepted into the community and been well recognized as a IT guys with great attitude.
Your friend, is a somebody to the people and was granted, blessed and appreciated with lots of opportunity. While you, with lack of social skills and reluctance to be around people will stay forever alone. Unnoticed and nobody to the people.
Yes. This is the reality of life. It's not what you know, It's who you know. Cheers.
Quote by Paul Arden from the book "It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be"
Content insight by Redzuan Harris, Cariblogger.com
Sunday, December 29, 2013
9 Entrepreneurs who didn't take NO for an answer.
source : http://visual.ly
Top 10 Technologies and Trends for 2014
How to be a Successful Muslim Entrepreneur?
Do you want to be a successful Muslim entrepreneur?
Prophet has pointed out that the business is being a high position with Allah Almighty, as his saying that : "9 out of 10 of livelihood (available) through the business" (Narrated by Tirmidhi).
The Quran and Hadith set out this code for every Muslim to abide by and it encourages the following traits in a Muslim.
1) Commitment to Faith - the successful entrepreneurs are focused on their worship to Allah(SWT) because they know all prosperity and success comes from Him alone.
2) Impeccable Character - the successful entrepreneurs held high values which are celebrated in Islam such as responsibility, keeping promises, honesty.
3) Creativity and Innovative Thinking - the successful entrepreneurs need to apply Islamic principles to solving problems in many fields, such as medicine, agriculture, food, technology that have great implications for the Muslim Ummah
4) Future Oriented - Successful Muslim entrepreneurs know Allah(SWT) will ask everyone to be accountable for how they used their time, wealth, health and knowledge and they make sure they prioritize their life accordingly.
5) Motivation - the successful entrepreneurs are driven by their passion to excel and achieve their goals.
6) Be the Best - the successful entrepreneurs work on acquiring the cutting edge knowledge in their fields and always reading about current trends.
7) Self- Confidence - A successful entrepreneur doesn’t listen to naysayers.
8) Do What You Love - Money isn’t a motivator for human beings, working for something higher than we are is.
9) Be Persistent - A successful entrepreneur always does what it takes to get the job done no matter what obstacles get thrown their way.
10) Focus on Solving Problems - A successful entrepreneur follow their dream, remember to focus on helping others find and accomplish their dreams/goals first.
source : http://hodansibrahim.com
Outcome-Driven Innovation
Outcome-Driven Innovation transforms jobs to be done theory into practice. Tony Ulwick, Founder for Strategyn successfully create new innovation strategy and innovation process. 12 element has be discovered such as Customers, Market, Need, Opportunities, Segmentation, Sizing, Competition, Strategy, Pricing, Ideation, Testing and Positioning.
Find out how the best innovation process has be done.
source : http://strategyn.com
Friday, December 27, 2013
8 things successful people do, and why they work
Source: visual.ly
How to Never Give Up on Becoming an Entrepreneur
9 Signs You Might Be an Entrepreneur
Source: visual.ly
Do Entrepreneurs need to go to college?
Source: visual.ly
Inside the mind of startup entrepreneur
Source: visual.ly
The Evolution of the Office
Growth of m-commerce and mobile payment solutions
A PRODUCTIVE day in the life of a Social Media Marketer
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
31 Insanely Easy And Clever DIY Projects
- Think Brutal
- Think Small
- Think Minimal
- Think Motion
- Think Iconic
- Think Phrasal
- Think Casual
- Think Human
- Think Skeptic
- Think War
Nail Polish Key Covers
Build a Bookshelf With Two Ladders and Planks of Wood
Create a Couch From Wooden Pallet
Make a Bike Rack out of Those Wooden Pallet
and many more at http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/31-insanely-easy-and-clever-diy-projects
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Social Entrepreneurship - TOMS
Source: Wikipedia, Youtube.
Saturday, December 21, 2013
How Two IT Guys Turned Their Love For Apple Products Into A Multi-Million Company
Flash forward 11 years to Tuesday. The company they founded together, JAMF Software, just raised $30 million from Summit Partners, its first second VC investment. (UPDATED: the company raised $3 million three years ago.)
In 2002, they were bucking the trend. Those were the days when most businesses ran Windows. There were few IT tools to help them manage a lot of Macs, to do things like install software across hundreds of PCs, set them up on a corporate network, troubleshoot problems.
Today JAMF has over 4,000 customers, including 34 of the Fortune 500; is managing over 3.8 million devices, between Macs, iPads and iPhones; and employs 275 workers (over 100 hired in the last year alone).
"When we started out, it was a labor of love. We thought that someday we might have 30 people working for the company," Pearson, CEO, told Business Insider.
"[2002] was the year that the first Apple store opened, the first iPod was released, OS 10 was pretty new. For us it was always something that we needed to do, more than thinking it would turn into a successful mid-sized business. It was out of a love for Apple, Apple's deep commitment to its end users," he says.
After the iPhone launched and business users started bringing it to work, JAMF took off, in part because there's a peculiar trend that happens with Apple devices, Pearson says: People tend to go from one Apple device to lots of them.
"We believe the world is going to go from a one-device worker to a three-Apple device worker. One of the interesting things we've seen is no matter where they come in, whether someone starts out with the Mac, the iPhone or the iPad, they end up where they want more of those Apple technologies for their day-to-day use," he says.
Because of that, enterprise use of Apple devices has exploded, he says. Enterprises are renewing their contracts with JAMF with ever-more devices. Revenue has grown 70% at JAMF since Apple introduced the iPhone, he says.
JAMF isn't the only software that helps enterprises manage Apple devices. JAMF plays in a hot enterprise area called Mobile Device Management. It competes with Microsoft System Center (although System Center is geared toward a company that mostly uses Windows with a few Macs/iOS devices thrown in). Others include MobileIron and AirWatch. (AirWatch nabbed a huge $200 million venture investment, also its first, in February).
But JAMF differs in that it only manages Apple devices, not Windows. It's success is a big indicator of how much progress Apple has made with enterprise users, without much effort or attention to them.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/it-guys-who-love-apple-make-millions-2013-12#ixzz2o6j4q3jU
7 Innovation Myths Holding You Back
One reason we’re endlessly focused on expert innovation, or as she calls it, innovation window dressing, is our core belief that innovation is difficult.
According to one recent study, 68% of business leaders believe that innovators are “born and cannot be made.”
However, scientists have shown the exact opposite is true. For instance, a landmark study of identical twins who were separated at birth found that although 80 percent of the variation on IQ tests is attributable to genetics, only 30 percent of performance on creativity tests can be explained that way. In other words, 70 percent of creativity is related to environment, which means that it’s entirely possible for just about anyone to learn to think more innovatively.
What is innovation?
Innovation is not, as many people believe, synonymous with invention and therefore out of the reach of the average person. It’s simpler than you might think. You don’t have to create something mind-blowing and entirely new, like the automobile or the Internet. Often, innovation simply means making incremental improvements to something that already exists … And frequently that’s accomplished by borrowing and adapting an idea or approach or technology from another field altogether.
Sounds a lot like how Gutenberg developed the printing press. “An important part of Gutenberg’s genius,” writes Steven Johnson, “lay not in conceiving an entirely new technology from scratch, but instead from borrowing a mature technology from an entirely different field, and putting it to work to solve an unrelated problem.”
So innovation is often remixing and cross-pollinating ideas. Most innovation starts with curiosity. Can this be done? Can this be improved? Why won’t this work?
A lot of us, though, just don’t do this. On the job and at home, many of us hit on an answer that sounds “right,” or that others approve of, then figure question period is over. We burrow down and focus on implementing whatever solution we’ve devised, unwilling to revisit or rethink it. And that’s a mistake. Sometimes it’s the follow-up question, or the one after that, that is going to field the game-changing revelation. …. Just stopping at the first plausible response is how a lot of us get stuck and find ourselves unable to solve problems.
Sounds like we’re losing our grit. We’ve been brought up to think we’re so smart and clever and that we don’t have to work hard for anything that we just give up when we come against a tough problem.
The main difference between innovators and the rest of us is that innovators ask more and better questions, “and they are more driven to find answers and embrace them, even if the answers are first not what they wanted or expected to find,” Lang writes. “They have less in common with Einstein, frankly, than with young children.”
Kids do a lot of things we’ve learned not to do, ignoring conventional wisdom in the process. Most times the results are as you’d expect — sticking your tongue on cold metal? Yea, that was a bad idea. But sometimes the ideas stick and they come up with something we never would have thought of.
So when kids ask questions, encourage them. When you don’t answer questions kids do an odd thing: they stop asking.
That’s exactly what we don’t want them to do, for a number of reasons. For starters, highly curious kids learn more the more they find out, the more they realize they don’t know and the deeper they dig for information, whether the topic they’re interested in is computers or rap or chemistry. Curiosity is, therefore, strongly correlated with intelligence. … Researchers found that kids who had been equally intelligent at age three were, at eleven, no longer equal. The ones who’d been more curious at three were now also more intelligent, which isn’t terribly surprising when you consider how curiosity drives the acquisition of knowledge.
“In the industrial economy, the person who wins is the expert,” explains Claude Legrand, co-author of "Innovative Intelligence."
“In the knowledge economy, the person who wins is the one who has the process to solve complex problems.”
Lang also blows up some myths about innovation.
Myth 1: Innovation is about the newest thing.
Sometimes a great innovation is indeed a “step-change”: the motorized vehicle that displaces the horse and buggy. But most innovation is incremental. From my own favourite, life-improving innovation — the curved shower rod — to just about any product or service you can name, little improvements and developments are being introduced all the time. …
Myth 2: Innovation is a solo activity
Consistent with our tendency to think of innovation solely in terms of mind-blowing new inventions, we often think of innovators as geniuses, oddballs with wild ideas and wilder hair. People who occupy the far end of the innovation spectrum were probably less easily tamed by our school systems and may therefore be less comfortable in corporate environments. But even mavericks and mad scientist types need other people to implement the innovations they’ve dreamed up, and usually, those other people wind up incrementally improving their inventions in some way. …
Myth 3: Innovation can’t be taught
Every day, people like Colonel Rolf Smith teach organizations, businesses and individuals how to get in touch with their inner innovator. But teaching innovative thinking isn’t like teaching Math or French— it’s more a matter of teaching people how to harness their existing natural curiosity in order to unleash their innate capacity for innovation.
Myth 4: Innovation is top-down
Remember the flocking theory? Flying in formation, birds on the periphery — where the risks are, and where you can see more — send messages and warning signals to bring flying in the centre, where it’s more protected and safer. Similarly, in a fast-food restaurant, the clerk at the counter cottons on long before anyone at head office does that the new trays are flimsy and hard to stack. In a hospital, the nurses may resist washing their hands unless there’s a way to communicate both up and down the food chain that the problem is the harsh cleanser they’re made to use. Smart companies like Four Seasons and Whole Foods explicitly recognize that the closer an employee is to the end-user, the more likely he or she is to have concrete ideas about how to innovate — and the more important it is for the higher-ups to listen.
Myth 5: You can’t force innovation
It’s very true that you can’t tell others to start innovating pronto, and expect much good to come of it. But you can create an environment that encourages and rewards curiosity and therefore promotes engagement and innovation.
Myth 6: Change is always good
Tell that to the product team that dreamed up New Coke. The funny thing about that epic failure was that the beverage itself actually tested well — people liked the stuff. What didn’t fly was the implication that there was something wrong with Old Coke. … The sheer math on ideas suggests that about half of them will be lousy. But that’s not catastrophic unless the lesson taken is that there’s no point in continuing to dream up anything new, and it’s safer to stick with what’s always worked in the past.
Myth 7: Innovation isn’t for everyone
Let’s put this one to rest forever. Remember how kids in developing countries respond to the Soccket? When they see the ball, they almost immediately start asking questions and dreaming up their own innovations. Innovative thinking is contagious. It’s a bug that anyone can catch.
Since our ancestors first stood upright, humans beings have been innovating: more and better tools, different and improved circumstances, more effective and efficient ways of doing things. It’s pretty silly to think we’ve suddenly all lost that basic drive now that we’ve hit the twenty-first century. If anything, our capacity to innovate is exponentially greater because of our unprecedented ability to share information and ideas, which also makes it much easier to take something from one field and apply it to another.