Today was a good day

The trip of an entrepreneur is more up and down then the biggest, fastest roller coaster in world. It has the lowest lows followed by some highs that would empress Cheech and Chong. Today was a good day and helped to remind me of the value of your close network of friends, advisers, and family that you are consistently surrounded by and get all the necessary support you need. I am so thankful to have the network around me that I have. So much so that I know without a doubt that I would be nowhere near where I am with BigLeapGPS as I am now without it. I did a presentation to an entrepreneur class at Clemson several months back and I kept coming back to my network. I kept saying that everything I have and have been able to do was based on that and a student piped up and said, "How can I get in on this network?" I told him to come to InnoVenture 2008, he came, and I introduced him to my network. It is not rocket science to find the people around you that can help, it is building a relationship and trust with them before anything is asked of them that makes a great difference. To go as far as even doing something for them because any supportive network is a two way street and will never work if all you do is take and take. Give, give a lot and things come back many, many times over. Of all the investments, sales training classes, self help groups, whatever else I have invested in in the past to better myself - my network has by far been my greatest investment.

Idea creation is nothing compared to what you do with it

Everybody has ideas. As anyone, so what was or is your great idea that could change the world? What is your paper drink umbrella or your paper click or your post it note? Most everyone will have at least one idea if not many that are truly unique and would be a game changer if they had taken the idea further than just saying, "Hey, what about this?" Don't get me wrong, having great ideas are very important but what is even more important is you doing something with them or sharing your ideas with people that can do something. There is absolutely nothing wrong in sharing a concept with a mover and a shaker especially if you know yourself well enough to know you are not going to do anything about it. Please, share your game changers with someone, chances are if they move forward with anything you give them it will come back 3 fold in your favor.

The American Idol Business Method

Think about it for a second in business terms rather than music. What if you had the ability to take a list of product ideas and concepts, present them to the world and let the world tell you which ones they like best and would/will buy when they are produced.
Think about what this concept cuts out for a business. 1) research on what the customer will buy. 2) product pre-production costs based on estimates rather than exact interest figures. 3) the risk of developing a product that would not sell.
The most popular TV show in the world is nothing more than a product advertisement and they are getting paid by the viewer to tell them which products they will pay more money for. The business model for American Idol is genius. You get paid to figure out what product to produce then you get paid on the finished product.
How can we apply those same terms to business and effectively deliver a list of products, ideas, or concepts to the market at large and make the potential customer care enough to provide feed back and at the same time get excited enough about the finished product to turn around and buy it when available?