fascinating insights into business strategy

Met with a couple of wannabe-entrepreneurs yesterday who are working on setting up a business and wanted some advice on protecting and commercialising their idea. In the course of the meeting, I threw out a couple of fairly standard lines such as the one about always build a business assuming that it will face smart, well-resourced competition and the one about instead of focusing obsessively on secrecy and IP protection, it will generally prove more successful to focus your efforts primarily on executing as well as humanly possible.

They sat there and wrote down every word. I forget sometimes how so many business-people and prospective business-people have never heard or understood these sorts of "insights". I guess that's why people pay consultants.

So often a primary focus of people starting businesses is on protecting their valuable secrets. In reality, ideas are a dime a dozen. If you come up with a great idea, the safest bet is to assume others will also (independently and in a way that cannot be challenged) come up with the same idea and to simply focus on executing the hell out of it.

In other news, MIFF starts later this week. Be there.