I married a nice and clever girl on October 10th. It was tougher than expected! In the middle of the rush, I realized that organizing a wedding is very much like starting a business and managing a team. I felt that it could be a good comparison to do and that some lessons can be learned from this.
First what you need is a vision! What if you dress 1900 style, rent a break-dance band to distract your guests during the cocktail, and organize the meal in a farm? Your guests are going to get mixed up, each of these ideas taken individually could be really nice, but all together, it will not fit… What you need is a vision, an idea that will guide your guests all along the wedding. It is really difficult to select between all these so cool ideas in order to get something consistent… This is the same difficulty as selecting between many so cool features that could give you access to other so cool markets and customers… Customers are like guest, they want consistency, they want to feel like you have a guiding idea, a vision. The difficult thing in being an entrepreneur is selecting carefully between all the paths that you could take, and to make your range of product something sensible…
If YOU do not have a clear vision of what you want to achieve, how are your customers and your team going to understand what your company is about and identify to this company enough to buy your products or work hard for you ?!?
This brings us to the second part, I am sorry to tell you that but you cannot make a software or a company all by yourself (John Carmack can, not you or me!). Same for your wedding. First because you are not competent enough in every field (I have never met either a cooker-DJ-musician-waiter-hair-dresser or a HR-accountant-lawyer-programmer-sales-manager). Even if they exists they could not do everything by themselves, because they are the star of THE day and so they need to be on stage (think Steve Jobs!), posing for everyone taking pictures, and not in the kitchen finishing the appetizers ! There are two types of people who will be able to help you:
- Suppliers (of goods or services)
- employees
Concerning suppliers, they are not always that easy to find and select, and as your are just starting your company (or because they already have wedding booked for the whole year), sometimes a bit reluctant to help you. A good thing to do is to ask around you. When starting a business you cannot afford to choose the wrong lawyer or accountant, you need to be sure. Relying on a well designed website can be a method for choosing an hotel for the weekend, but not for your company! Relying on people past experiences is the best way to avoid getting wrong. On top of that you will notice that it takes some time to handle all those guys, so try to limit yourself to one or two providers per category. Also this remembers me the “be important” advice of Guy Kawazaki (http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/03/the_art_of_suck.html#axzz0WP6bZ1Ld).
For what the suppliers cannot do, if you have competencies in your family or among your friends, ask them to help you. As you probably do not have that much money (and budgets are always shorts), get all the free help you can. In my wedding/team analogy, the people among your family and friends could be the people of your team: you know them well, you work together toward the same goal, and your happiness is closely linked to heir happiness. The only difference is that, well, the people of your team have to be paid at the end of the month! Choosing the people that would help you is a little bit like doing a HR job: trying to find the most competent people, that would be happy to help you, and making a match between teams so that that old uncle Willy will not be in the same team as John, the guy he hates the most on earth.
These people are happy to help you, but only you have the vision, so they do not really know what to do! Make sure that everyone knows what he has to do (what you want him to do, which goal he should achieve) and when he has to do that. Next make sure everyone has the information and tools he needs to perform the task. Nothing is more upsetting than someone supposed to park your car near the church, and that do not know where that church is. It is so obvious to you, but not to them ! On the other hand, how is your cousin supposed to cut cakes if he does not have a knife? It is your role as a manager to make sure that everyone has the sufficient knowledge and tools to perform the task you are asking for!
To sum, a good entrepreneur should:
- take some time to think about the vision he has of his business
- find suppliers and a team that can help him to reach toward this vision
- make sure they know exactly what he wants
- make sure they got the information and tools to perform what he wants
All this can seems pretty obvious to you but in the heat of the day to day battle, one could forget these basics and get angry at his team or suppliers, because they just won’t do what he wants. In this times, remember the wedding analogy.
