24th
Agile Business & Bootstrapping
Agile is a well-known development methodology that is used in software and web development. It gets things going and allows for not everything to be planned.
The question is can it work for businesses? Its more commonly used in start-ups and web companies where bootstrapping is found.
The guys at 37Signals (BaseCamp) use an agile way of thinking in their business. Reading the notes that Robbie Allen wrote online from the 37Signals Getting Real Workshop (http://tinyurl.com/agx4jb)
Agile thinking to business is about:
Not worrying about the future but concentrating on now
There is no need to worry about problems that doesn’t exist. Worry about scale when you have a million customers and hire for scale only when you need to.
Accepting mistakes will happen and learning from them
Agile will mean that mistakes will be made but agile also means that you will be able to correct them quickly. The idea is not to try and worry about making mistakes as people are paralyzed by mistakeaphobia as 37Signals put it.
Grow organically and not building a business that is monolithic
Try and simplify and not build monolithic businesses with no focus. If you try 15 ideas and 2 of them gain traction, concentrate on the ones that work. Which leads on to build things quickly, low cost and if it is successful you put more effort.
If you fail, accept it
Failure is something good. It is better to fail more trying more ideas than failing on the only idea you have. It is also important to know when you have failed or when to move on and try something else.
Let me know what you think - Ben [ at ] benmatthew.net
