SUMMER OF TECH 2011

We heard from 2 successful Wellington tech entrepreneurs, sharing wisdom and learning about how to execute a great idea, how to get it from the garage to the market, and what the key ingredients are to building a successful enterprise in Wellington, NZ.  Our 2nd speaker was Melissa Clark-Reynolds from Minimonos.  (Notes from Dave’s talk are in part 1, over here)

Melissa Clark-Reynolds

It is my belief that the purpose of the start-up phase of every business is to work out if your brilliant idea has “legs” – in other words is there a market? Can you get to it? Is there a real problem you solve? Can you really solve it? Will customers pay to have you solve their problem? Can you make money along the way?

Melissa talked about 4 Startup Mistakes and distilled some valuable lessons from them!  Her “Diary of an Entrepreneur” blog post today has much more detail, so definitely check it out over here.

Here’s some quick highlights:

1. Pick the right business partners
It’s all about people!  Having the right team from the start is essential, and it doesn’t necessarily mean someone who’s just like you.  Make sure your co-founders, investors & employees share your values.  You need to have the tough conversations with co-founders about money, about vision, about values.

Minimonos has recently extended their Employee Share Scheme (Melissa talked about that in an earlier blog post) and keeping the right team means they share the company’s vision and are motivated to achieve it.

2. Make sure you have a (big) market
A great idea is not the same thing as a great business.  The judges of your business are your customers, and they vote with their wallets.  If people won’t pay for your product, you don’t have a market.  If you don’t have a market, you don’t have a business. There is no virtue in being ahead of your time, or first to market… at the end of the day, they key measure of a successful business is SALES.

3. Focus on the business (not just the technology)

When we fall in love with our product and not with our customers, we are in deep trouble.

There’s a lot of buzz about innovation and inventions and the “new” leading edge R&D.  Beware!  See point 2 above, if you’re ahead of your customer, you don’t have a business.

The F&P Smart Drive Washing Machine is a beautiful piece of engineering.  It has smart electronics and intelligent agitators and all sorts of fabulous technology.  However, if yours is broken, the only thing you want it to do is WASH YOUR CLOTHES.  If it’s not achieving that basic goal, the revolutionary nature of the direct drive motor doesn’t matter one bit.

Melissa talked about cranking money out of existing technology, being customer focused and creating a global business that uses technology as a tool to meet a customer need, rather than having the technology as the main focus & driver of the business.

It’s kind of ironic, however, that one of the top returns on Google is a website explaining how to turn your smart drive washing machine engine into a wind turbine generator.  Maybe that’s a better use for it, after all…

4. Know your competitors
If you’re going into competition with a big organisation, like the government for example… beware!  If your competitor has big resources, or sets the rules of the market, then your business will have a tough time.  Examples include health insurance and education.  This lesson can be expanded to other industries, the main thing is not to underestimate your competition!

HUGE thanks to Melissa for a great talk!   More information about our speakers can be found here.

(You might also be interested in the writeup from Rowan Simpson’s Xero Summer Seminar focused on Startup Lessons, held back in December)

HUGE thank-yous to Xero for being our fantastic sponsor of the seminar series. And to Kiwibank for being our venue partner.

Thanks for making these events possible.