Time to face business reality?
I recently read an interesting short writeup on bnet on how Twitter and the other revenue-less Web 2.0 company, now more than ever needed to get down to business. In case you missed it, we are actually in the middle of another tech bubble about to go bust. How can you tell ? easy. When a business is focusing on anything other than revenue and profitability, sooner or later its going to bite you.
The current economic turmoil doesn't do anyone any good. Too much has been said about the Great Greed of Wall Street and I am not going to add anything new there. The interesting point is, while wall street become obsessed with generating more and more money, many Web 2.0 company manage to somehow turn the idea of generating real revenue into yesterday's fad. Shocking! Generating revenue is NOT cool!.
Personally, I have no doubt that this crisis will affect us. Yes, I could be all optimistic and say, "oh, more now people will want to buy our stuff because it saves them money" all day. Not surprisingly, almost all the entrepreneur that I knew say almost exactly that. We fail to see that entrepreneur are risk taker of disproportionate proportion. With 90% failure rate, optimism isn't worth much.
So, what is the business reality ? Nothing new.
- Revenue and cash flow is king. If you haven't start making any, you better start making some now
- If you are still experimenting with new idea, remember that you are actually running a "Research" not a business. Try not to be confused.
- Watch those access fat. Watch out those costly expenses, keep your operation lean and tight.
- Amplify learning and productivity. Knowledge, skills and productivity need to grow faster than ever.
- Watch our for new opportunities, especially in acquisition, buyout and other areas that enhances company operation.