Category: Service Design

Thursday, 8.41pm Sheffield, U.K

The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity. – Peter Drucker

I came across a paper by Fine et al., (2022) that looked at operations management for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs have been ignored by researchers. Most research is done in large companies and the standard subjects taught in universities focus on the needs of mature firms with large supply chains and complex operations. Startups are different. They don’t follow a formula. Some find customers and then figure out operations. Others do the reverse.

People who love startups will identify with the metaphor of a small group hacking through dense jungle. You need guts, courage, a belief in yourself, and the ability to withstand mosquito bites and the odd tiger attack. Cash is everything. Speed of movement is more important than quality. You want a determined team that can improvise on the fly rather than waiting for direction. Good communication, quick decisions, and getting away from charging elephants quickly is vital for survival.

At some point, the startup founders get through the jungle and find a place to make camp. They might stay here for a while. They might even create a village. But how do you handle that transition effectively? There are at least 10 things to think about.

1. Process

You need to go from ad-hoc one-off things to repeatable activities. If you follow a series of steps to get things done, then you can reflect on those steps and make them better over time.

2. Professionals

It’s time to get the professionals in. Find some “grown-ups” that wear suits and manage things and put them in charge.

3. Culture

This is how people behave when you aren’t around. Culture comes from the top. They way the boss behaves is the way everyone else acts.

4. Automation

Computers should make your life easier. Learn how to use them well.

5. Segmentation

Create a package of work that you can sell that provides a bundle of benefits to a customer. Do one thing and do it to completion. When you’ve tapped your market expand carefully without damaging your first offering.

6. Platforms

It works for some businesses if you’re lucky or a first mover or have lots of money or are lucky.

7. Collaboration

Leave your ego at the door and get good at working with others. Relationships will help you grow faster but you’ll have to share profits with your partners.

8. Capitalization

If you need money, you’ll need to share equity and give up control over your business. Pick your funders carefully.

9. Replication

Once you have a working model, you’ll want to do this over and over again, either the same way or with some customisation. Think about that.

10. Evaluation

Take time to check where you’re going. Are your numbers on track? What’s the voice of the process telling you? Hope this sparks a few thoughts.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

References

Fine, C.H., Padurean, L., Naumov, S., 2022. Operations for entrepreneurs: Can Operations Management make a difference in entrepreneurial theory and practice? Production and Operations Management 31, 4599–4615. https://doi.org/10.1111/poms.13851

Tuesday, 8.15pm

Sheffield, U.K.

Adventure is just bad planning. – Roald Amundsen

If the purpose of business is to create a customer then the purpose of marketing is to create a conversation.

People can’t talk to you if they don’t know you exist. If they’re not aware of you.

It’s easier than ever to get in front of people.

Or is it?

More accurately, you have a small chance of getting your content into the social media feed if you post something relevant and the algorithmic gods smile on you.

It is, when you think about it, the mathematics of the casino.

LinkedIn plays the role of the house.

I’m picking LinkedIn because it’s the platform for B2B firms.

The algorithm has to work well enough to give you a buzz but not so well that you don’t need to use the paid promotion options.

It also has to keep you hooked by showing you a small handful of superstar winners that so you can see what wild success looks like.

Too cynical?

I don’t know. It’s the game we have to play. And it’s easier to play a game when you like doing what you’re doing and have a plan. One that will give you an outcome regardless of what happens on the platform.

Why am I telling you this?

Over the next few weeks I will be running an experiment to see if I can systematically create content for my professional practice on LinkedIn.

I mentioned yesterday that this blog is where I think and my professional practice is where I do.

So I’d like to share with you how I’m going to go about planning this experiment.

The first thing is putting some constraints around the kind of content I’m going to share.

I’m going to stick with 5,000 year old technology: text and handmade drawings.

Luk Smeyers has a great resource on creating a content machine if you’re a consultant.

And it comes down to a few key points.

1. What can you write about that others will find valuable?
2. What topics are your audience interested in?
3. Can you create and stick to a schedule

A good idea is to create a cadence and share a particular kind of thing each day of the week.

Smeyer’s example is is advice on Monday, case studies Tuesday and Wednesday, newsletter on Thursday, advice as a carousel Friday, a reshare Saturday, and a shoutout to other creators on Sunday.

I don’t know if I can be as consistent – it all depends on how much time it takes but if it’s all taking too long there’s a simple fix.

Reduce the scope to fit the time you have.

The important thing is to ship. You don’t lose until you stop playing.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

Monday, 8.33pm

Sheffield, U.K.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. – Confucius

There are two learning loops we all use all the time.

The first is single loop learning, which is thinking about what you do.

If you take a metaphorical step back and look at yourself doing what you do, that’s double loop learning.

Also known as reflection.

The “real” work happens in the doing, where the shovel meets the dung, the rubber meets the paper and the groceries meet the bag.

Reflection is about whether you’re going about the doing in the right way.

You can use one easy question for both types of thinking.

How do you help your client?

Ask it with the correct emphasis.

How do you help your client?

What value do they get from you? What is the bundle of benefits you offer?

What physical thing, monetary saving or peace of mind do you offer?

Then ask, how do you help your client?

What is it about the way you apply yourself – what knowledge, what approach do you bring to bear on their situation?

What is unique about your background and methods?

Why would those be particularly useful for a specific type of client?

The best way to think about these ideas is to write and apply what you’ve learned to build your business.

One kind of thinking is about the job. The other is about the “meta” aspects of the job. Keep these two separate. For example, I use this blog as a place to explore the meta but I use my professional social media to think about my specific area of practice.

Be clear about you you’re talking to and why.

How do you know when you’ve done enough thinking?

You’re never really done, but a good way to do this is to ask questions.

If you’ve thought about your work and written something about it then ask “What will my client do after reading this?”

You’ve hit the mark if reading what you’ve written leads to action, to doing something.

If you’ve written a reflective piece then you can ask, “What will I change about myself now?”

Growth begins when you recognize that something has to change.

You can do all this work and put your writing in a drawer, but you might be tempted to share it.

There are pros and cons.

You’ll get feedback – people will like what you write and say so or you’ll get ignored.

Feedback is good.

But we’re a social species and it’s easy to get addicted to checking whether people have noticed and responded to what you’re saying.

Feedback is to help you get better, not to make you feel better or worse.

That’s what reflection is for.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

Sunday, 9.05pm

Sheffield, U.K.

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks. – Warren Buffett

How many productivity systems have you tried? Sometimes I feel like I’ve tried all of them.

Each one’s strengths is also a weakness.

Here are some of the challenges I struggle with.

Sunday, 6.07am

Sheffield, U.K.

Life is lived on levels and arrived at in stages. – Edwin Louis Cole

As some of you know, I began this blog with the aim of writing a million words in ten years to throw away. I had no idea what I would write about, what readers might like, or what I might get out of it. I knew that I liked writing and I wanted to do more of it, but better.

I have around 90,000 words left to go and I want to use these last 200 or so posts to get ready for the next stage, whatever that is. But first let’s look at the journey so far and what lessons I have learned.

What makes a writing practice?

1. Just write

In the beginning it’s ok to have no idea what you’re doing. No one knows about you. You don’t have hundreds or thousands of readers waiting for your next post to drop. You’re unknown and anonymous and that’s a very freeing place to be.

At this stage the job is to create something. Anything. And create a lot of it.

You will not do great work from the beginning. It will not even be good. You might even be embarrassed by it looking back. But you’ll be making something. And that gets you started.

2. Find your voice

When we first start to write we think there is a particular way to do things – the “right” way. We need to use big words, show how clever we are, create complex arguments and talk about big, important things.

Eventually you realize that writing is a conversation. It’s a chat between you, the writer, and one friend.

It’s not a transcript of the conversation either. Such a document is full of “ums” and “like”. It’s the conversation you wished you could have, the one where you got your thoughts straightened out and plainly said what you thought. The time when you were understood.

If you write for long enough you’ll find your way of speaking through the scrawl. The style that marks your work. Look for this and hold on to it because this is where you find the real “you”.

3. Find your niche

It’s no fun writing about something that bores you. Find an area that is endlessly fascinating that you want to return to time after time.

For me that area is the intersection of decision making, visual thinking and technology.

In other words, I like to use drawing and writing as a way to learn and think about the world around me and make better choices that lead to peace of mind.

That gives me a lot to think, read and write about.

4. Create a ritual

Production requires a process. One that’s simple and repeatable.

I tend to write around the same time every day. Except today, and I’ll come back to that in the next section. I draw a picture. I write in a text editor. I have a set of scripts that make my writing faster. And I post to WordPress when I’m done.

This ritual make it easier to go from nothing to something to done.

I sometimes tweak the ritual and then realize that I shouldn’t have done that. It’s working. Step away and mess with something else instead.

5. Get good

This is the hard one. How do you make something that others like?

There is one answer to this and you can remember it with the acronyms WET and WETT.

Let’s start with the first one. I am trying to make my life harder by using WET to write each of the next 200 posts. WET stands for “Write Everything Twice”. I wrote this post by hand on blank A4 paper on a clipboard with a pencil last night and then rewrote it this morning. I didn’t type it up. I looked at my draft from yesterday and rewrote it.

My original draft had a first page that was trying to get into a story. The key stuff only started at paragraph 5. The draft worked its way into a sequence of ideas, which I reworked into a list.

This second version is better than the first. It’s tighter. More compact. More useful. Better.

How could I make it good?

I’m up against time on a blog post. I can justify a couple of hours but not much more. But for a paper that I plan to publish I can justify spending an hour on a sentence. And that’s where the second acronym comes in.

WETT stands for Write Everything Ten Times. Rework each sentence one at a time. This is a technique I learned from Jordan Peterson’s “Essay”. Take what you write, split it into sentences and write another version of each sentence and then another one until you are happy that it says exactly what you want to say.

Making your writing good is a process of iteration. Of working over and over until your message is crystal clear.

End note

Natalie Goldberg in “Writing down the bones” writes about her struggles with meditation and how her teacher said to her, “Why do you come to sit meditation? Why don’t you make writing your practice? If you go deep enough in writing, it will take you everyplace.”

It really will.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh