This post is mostly about me scolding myself,
Overall in life and specifically in business I am a big believer in Focus - a company should find what it is good at and push on that front, focus on a product, a kind of customers, a distribution channel and be the best in the world in that.
However, slowly in Sabi I started to diverge and in a way Sabi's focus was ALL OVER THE PLACE. I noticed it yesterday when I was meeting a potential investor, it was less about the investor's feedback (which he actually really like Sabi) it was the fact that I noticed that instead of focus, maybe because I wanted to have ready answers to investors I was catering to waaaayyy too many things.
Well today (which is my birthday Dec. 22nd) since it is as good day as any for some reflection I am taking a look at Sabi and trying to see where do we want to focus on in order to maximize our success.
On another note - The course I structured with Bezalel is getting to his ending and in the last couple of weeks I received some amazing ideas for products. It basically proves the point (at least in my mind) that smart and creative people can come up with tons of good ideas and at the end it is all about execution of the ideas.
Merry Christmas and Happy new year to all
A
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
So what do you do all day??
This is basically my mom's question, it took me quite a bit of time to explain to her what is it that Sabi does (which in a way attest to the fact that we need to make the schpill simpler), but everytime they ask me whether the money is in yet - and I respond not yet in a little bit longer it comes up to "SO WHAT DO YOU DO ALL DAY?"
Although I am 99.9% certain my mom isn't one of the avid readers of this blog (if it has ANY avid readers at all) I figured I might as well write about it...
So here goes, basically I look at the day of the closing as the ZERO day where everything starts moving from, yes I talked to many many people and am working very hard in selling the concept and the idea, but there are budget limitations and also not quite easy just selling a concept without specific products yet.
I am constantly working on refining the plans to this Zero day:
Operational plan - What would be the costs of the products, where will they be manufactured - not trivial - the initial thought was in China, but with the Israeli goverment giving grants to manufacture in Israel as well as specific expertise in some plastics areas as well as the quite limited number of products and quantity we will prepare initially (20,000 per SKU) it might make sense to manufacture not in China.
Design - I found the design shop (after probably meeting 50 shops), and am working with them on insights, research, ideas and work processes. In addition, I launched a course with Bezalel school of design to design products for Sabi - and communicating with the students and the professor can take time as well. Conducting focus groups and brainstorm sessions in different places (Boston elderly care center, eons.com etc')
Financials - Constantly updating the plan to see that we will still deliver on time and on budget.
Board - I am currently finalizing the board composition and will hopefully write about it in the coming weeks (we are almost there).
Reseach - I believe that in the last 6 months I read every book I was able to get my hands on on the senior market (bought tons of them on Amazon) - firstly, most of them are just not good - it is very very tough to read a book which is boring, badly written and with no conclusion only to find a couple of nuggets - Near my bed stand are books such as "Boom - marketing to the ultimate power consumer - the baby-boomer woman" (Mary Brown & Carol Orsborn) ; "Turning Silver into Gold" (Mary Furlong); "Dot Boom - Marketing to baby boomers through meaningful online engagment" (David Weigelt and Jonathan Boehman) to "Groundswell - winning in a world transformed by social technologies" (Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff) and "Viral Loop"
Investors - Well it ain't over till the fat lady sings - so I am constantly talking to investors
Legal - Linked to the line above there is always work there until we finalize the round
Networking - Constantly talking to people that can potentially help Sabi - lawyers that can connect to retailers, ex retailers, reps, buyers, people who launched product companies, Sloan lectures and HBS lectures etc' etc'
Well so I am kind of busy...
Although I am 99.9% certain my mom isn't one of the avid readers of this blog (if it has ANY avid readers at all) I figured I might as well write about it...
So here goes, basically I look at the day of the closing as the ZERO day where everything starts moving from, yes I talked to many many people and am working very hard in selling the concept and the idea, but there are budget limitations and also not quite easy just selling a concept without specific products yet.
I am constantly working on refining the plans to this Zero day:
Operational plan - What would be the costs of the products, where will they be manufactured - not trivial - the initial thought was in China, but with the Israeli goverment giving grants to manufacture in Israel as well as specific expertise in some plastics areas as well as the quite limited number of products and quantity we will prepare initially (20,000 per SKU) it might make sense to manufacture not in China.
Design - I found the design shop (after probably meeting 50 shops), and am working with them on insights, research, ideas and work processes. In addition, I launched a course with Bezalel school of design to design products for Sabi - and communicating with the students and the professor can take time as well. Conducting focus groups and brainstorm sessions in different places (Boston elderly care center, eons.com etc')
Financials - Constantly updating the plan to see that we will still deliver on time and on budget.
Board - I am currently finalizing the board composition and will hopefully write about it in the coming weeks (we are almost there).
Reseach - I believe that in the last 6 months I read every book I was able to get my hands on on the senior market (bought tons of them on Amazon) - firstly, most of them are just not good - it is very very tough to read a book which is boring, badly written and with no conclusion only to find a couple of nuggets - Near my bed stand are books such as "Boom - marketing to the ultimate power consumer - the baby-boomer woman" (Mary Brown & Carol Orsborn) ; "Turning Silver into Gold" (Mary Furlong); "Dot Boom - Marketing to baby boomers through meaningful online engagment" (David Weigelt and Jonathan Boehman) to "Groundswell - winning in a world transformed by social technologies" (Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff) and "Viral Loop"
Investors - Well it ain't over till the fat lady sings - so I am constantly talking to investors
Legal - Linked to the line above there is always work there until we finalize the round
Networking - Constantly talking to people that can potentially help Sabi - lawyers that can connect to retailers, ex retailers, reps, buyers, people who launched product companies, Sloan lectures and HBS lectures etc' etc'
Well so I am kind of busy...
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Full gas in neutral
This is one of these blogs that I just need a place to vent, I haven't written in 20 days since I was really hoping that this post would be the happy conclusion of the funding. However, life does not work like that, so what is the current status???
Overall, I am looking to raise an angel round of $1M, I budgeted it all and was looking for a budget that would allow me to work (assuming zero income will come in) for 18 months and focus on Sabi and not be over busy all the time with fund raising.
I promised my investors that I will only "call" the money when I have the full commitments, what happens is that I currently have ~$750K of confirmed funds and still need the extra $250K. I have quite a few hot leads that I am talking with but nothing concrete yet.
The thing is that it is like a dance sometimes you move two steps forward and one back and sometimes it is the other way around two back and one forward.
What I find very difficult is the full dependancy on someone else, I know I know in sales it is the same story but I can't say it doesn't frustrate me. I am sitting at home in my office, I pushed forward everything I can to the max. Researched and talked to gazzilion of people, set up the operational plan, structured the design process, talked to retailers (which you can do to a limited extent since I don't have the products ready so far), have the legal and structures in place and now just need to put the fuel in the car to get it moving...
This is very much counter my character to stand still, I am literally climbing the walls
BUT I am certain we will get it done and close this round and sooner rather than later and then we will move full steam ahead
That's it - wow I really needed that
A
Overall, I am looking to raise an angel round of $1M, I budgeted it all and was looking for a budget that would allow me to work (assuming zero income will come in) for 18 months and focus on Sabi and not be over busy all the time with fund raising.
I promised my investors that I will only "call" the money when I have the full commitments, what happens is that I currently have ~$750K of confirmed funds and still need the extra $250K. I have quite a few hot leads that I am talking with but nothing concrete yet.
The thing is that it is like a dance sometimes you move two steps forward and one back and sometimes it is the other way around two back and one forward.
What I find very difficult is the full dependancy on someone else, I know I know in sales it is the same story but I can't say it doesn't frustrate me. I am sitting at home in my office, I pushed forward everything I can to the max. Researched and talked to gazzilion of people, set up the operational plan, structured the design process, talked to retailers (which you can do to a limited extent since I don't have the products ready so far), have the legal and structures in place and now just need to put the fuel in the car to get it moving...
This is very much counter my character to stand still, I am literally climbing the walls
BUT I am certain we will get it done and close this round and sooner rather than later and then we will move full steam ahead
That's it - wow I really needed that
A
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