It's Lonely at the Top Preston: CEOs often feel very lonely. Although that may surprise many who have never been a CEO or business owner, it won’t surprise those who have. Many people clamor for time with the CEO. In addition to employees seeking the CEO’s time, there are customers, prospects and suppliers to meet [...]
Speed Preston: Brian, in our last exchange you talked about how the internet has enabled us to do things faster, cheaper and more efficiently. We discussed this in the specific application of developing a minimally viable product. I want to focus on the “faster” element whether enabled by the internet or not. Speed, in [...]
MVP (It's not what you think) Preston: Brian, “Ready, Fire, Aim” is great advice in those situations where we feel paralyzed by a lack of information. This is the state in which many entrepreneurial companies find themselves. It is also the state any business may find itself in when developing a new product or [...]
Don’t Let Sunk Costs Be an Anchor on Your Business By Preston Sumner and Brian Rouff Preston: Brian, when you described tearing down and rebuilding your business model, the phrase that came to mind was “creative destruction.” Besides being a powerful concept from John Boyd’s OODA process, creative destruction goes against the grain of the [...]
The Secrets of Creating a Sustainable Competitive Advantage By Preston Sumner and Brian Rouff Preston: The Holy Grail of business is creating a sustainable competitive advantage. You can point to numerous companies that have established a clear competitive advantage. The challenge is sustaining that competitive advantage. The chart below illustrates this difficulty. Note the turnover [...]
