A six-year-old condiment company has attracted loyal customers but has achieved less than $ 500,000 in sales. The company's gross margins can't cover its overhead or provide adequate incomes for the founder and the family members who participate in the business. Additional growth will require a huge capital infusion, 바카라사이트 but investors and potential buyers aren't keen on small, marginally profitable ventures, and the family has exhausted its resources.
Another young company, profitable and growing rapidly, imports novelty products from the Far East and sells them to large US chain stores. The founder, who has a paper net worth of several million dollars, has been nominated for entrepreneur-of-the-year awards. But the company's spectacular growth has forced him to reinvest most of his profits to finance the business's growing inventories and receivables. Furthermore, the company's profitability has attracted competitors and tempted customers to deal directly with the Asian suppliers. If the founder doesn't do something soon, the business will evaporate.decisions, and they must make the decisions that are right for them.The framework I present here and the accompanying rules of thumb will help entrepreneurs analyze the situations in which they find themselves, establish priorities among the opportunities and problems they face, and make rational decisions about the future. This framework, which is based on my observation of several hundred start-up ventures over eight years, doesn't prescribe answers. Instead, it helps entrepreneurs pose useful questions, identify important issues, and evaluate solutions. The framework applies whether the enterprise is a small printing shop trying to stay in business or a catalog retailer seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. And it works at almost any point in a venture's evolution.identify important issues, and evaluate solutions. The framework applies whether the enterprise is a small printing shop trying to stay in business or a catalog retailer seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. And it works at almost any point in a venture's evolution. identify important issues, and evaluate solutions. The framework applies whether the enterprise is a small printing shop trying to stay in business or a catalog retailer seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. And it works at almost any point in a venture's evolution.
Like most entrepreneurs, the condiment maker and the novelty importer get plenty of confusing counsel: Diversify your product line. Stick to your knitting. Raise capital by selling equity. Don't risk losing control just because things are bad. Delegate. Act decisively. Hire a professional manager. Watch your fixed costs.Entrepreneurs cannot expect the sort of guidance and comfort that an authoritative child-rearing book can offer parents. Human beings pass through physiological and psychological stages in a more or less predetermined order, but companies do not share a developmental path. Microsoft, Lotus, WordPerfect, and Intuit, although competing in the same industry, did not evolve in the same way.
Every company has its own story to tell about the development of systems and strategy.
The options that are appropriate for one entrepreneurial venture may be completely inappropriate for another. Entrepreneurs must make a bewildering number of decisions,
Why all the conflicting advice? Because the range of options - and problems - that founders of young businesses confront is vast. The manager of a mature company might ask, What business are we in? or How can we exploit our core competencies? Entrepreneurs must continually ask themselves what business they want to be in and what capabilities they would like to develop. Similarly, the organizational weaknesses and imperfections that entrepreneurs confront every day would cause the managers of a mature company to panic. Many young enterprises simultaneously lack coherent strategies, competitive strengths, talented employees, adequate controls, and clear reporting relationships.
The problems entrepreneurs confront every day would overwhelm most managers. 카지노사이트
The entrepreneur can tackle only one or two opportunities and problems at a time. Therefore, just as a parent should focus more on a toddler's motor skills than on his or her social skills, the entrepreneur must distinguish critical issues from normal growing pains.
