So a cash-in on the ever popular "Dragon's Den" BBC programme - at least popular in my house.Is it too much to hope for some good well spun and hard earned business lessons from reading the book? well....
amazon.co.uk
amazon.com
The book's format goes from - biographical overview of the Dragons and some words of advice, then the Dragons' "best" bits, and then some general advice from Evan Davis.
The bio info basically tells you that they all worked hard and had no advantages when they started out, the aim being that we don't all think "you rich **&£&$s" and instead think "hey, I could do that".
And on that point it meets its aim.
The words of advice are pretty run of the mill - I assume the intent here being that "this is common sense, so just get out there and do it" and to that point it works too.
The best advice I took out of it - and this is probably common sense as well, but it rang true for me - was from Duncan Bannatyne...
"Because I trust my ... managers..., I am free to scrutinise the underperforming club, discover why the profit margin is lower than the rest and then recommend the necessary improvements."
So - focus on the bits that are not working and do what it takes to fix them - don't interfere where things are working. Or... don't shirk your responsibilities and make the hard decisions and make them quickly.
Evan Davis' chapter has a good summary of "what the Dragon's usually ask" which provides a really good set of questions for many endeavours.
I've taken the liberty of summarising the questions here and I recommend you read the book for more information on these:
- What you've got and why it has value
- What does your product 'add'?
- What is the consumer's best alternative to your product?
- Has anyone else tried this idea or something similar?
- Does the business have a natural finite life (like a one-off project) or can it live for ever?
- Will the consumer be able to appreciate the value of the idea, or does it require the buyer to change their own behaviour?
- Has your product been rated by any experts, buyers, competitors, or partners?
- Can anyone copy it? Or do you have protection?
- What does your balance sheet look like?
- What debts do you have?
- Who are the other shareholders? And to what extent?
- Are you dependent on someone else?
- Is your business model scalable?
- Is there an international market for your product?
- Any regulatory hurdles?
- How you want to Exploit it
- What is your main revenue stream?
- Any subsidiary ideas for making money off this?
- Route to market?
- Any obvious business partners?
- How can investors exit the business?
- How much money does the business need now? And in the future?
- What is the best type of finance to raise for this business?
- What will you do with the funding?
- Will the funding meet your plan?
- Who are you to maximise the value of your idea?
- How does your background qualify you for this?
- What will you pay yourself?
- How much time will you invest in this?
- What are your motives? e.g. make money, achieve a goal, stay in business, build and sell?
- Are you linked to any other company? Why isn't this part of that?
- What is the Value - the numbers
- What will this product sell for?
- What is the size of the market?
- How much does this cost to make it? Could you make it cheaper?
- Any actual sales or success yet?
I think this is a great set of questions to apply to any project. I can see how I can use these questions to analyse projects I start up at work, how to prioritise them, how to build a business case (pitch) to get the budget for them.
That chapter is worth a read and provides a lot of value (at least it did for me). The rest of the chapters build the belief system that you can do what an entrepreneur does.
I got this out of the Library - I didn't think I would have found it worth the entrance fee had I bought it in the shops, but the current 50% rrp sales price at Amazon probably makes it a worthwhile purchase. States side prices are slightly less good value.
There is also plenty of good advice on the pages below, so happy surfing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragons%27_Den_(UK)
http://www.duncanbannatyne.co.uk/
http://www.theopaphitis.com/
http://www.deborahmeaden.com/
http://www.peterjones.tv/
http://www.james-caan.com/
http://www.tycoon.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment