Lately I’ve written about how agility is the most important characteristic an online business can have and I really can’t emphasize that enough. If you want to get anywhere online, you have to be agile. Period. That’s why the little guys are the ones who win big on the web. They can move in ways that the decades-old monoliths can’t.
But for the beginning online entrepreneur agility might seem like a vague, barely graspable term, maybe even a useless buzzword. How can agile methods of business creation and management practically be applied? What does agility entail and how can one go about achieving it?
Creating an agile business is easy and practical inasmuch as you are comfortable with doing less and doing it faster. To understand how an agile business works, it helps to know a bit about agile software development. While not directly related to online business, agile software development has already laid out the appropriate philosophies for aspiring online entrepreneurs.
The Agile Manifesto
In February of 2001, a group of computer programmers convened a meeting to discuss alternative methodologies for software development. They wanted something more lightweight than the methodologies that were dominant at the time. What they came up with was a manifesto for agile development. The manifesto said:
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
The agile software development movement therefore represents a minimalist approach to the development of ideas. It calls for simplicity, customer satisfaction brought on by the rapid development of new and useful features and close cooperation between everyone involved.
You’ll have noticed that I’ve placed the last item in bold letters. Your attention needs to be called to that item because, while online entrepreneurs can learn a lot from the Agile Manifesto, the last point is the one that needs to be at the core of everything you’re working for.
Your Purpose as an Online Entrepreneur
Yesterday, I wrote that business plans are useless for online entrepreneurs and this is why. At the core of nearly every online business is a certain reverence for change. All online businesses are responses to change, from Yahoo! which grew out of a need to organize the web to Twitter and Facebook which grew out of a need to socialize it.
The way people interact with technology and the way they want to be able to interact with technology are in perpetual motion. The businesses that are most successful are those which pick up on these patterns and deliver amazing products or services based on those patterns. As an online entrepreneur, your goal isn’t to plan for the future.
Your goal is to listen for the future.
Bursts of Madness
You have to set up your business in a way that you’ll be able to listen and constantly adjust. The way that has worked for me and for plenty of other online businesses is to adopt an iterative development process. It’s often said that any move is a good move, even if it’s the wrong one. This is the philosophy of iterative development. The goal is to get something out the door. It doesn’t have to be perfect and it shouldn’t be perfect, it just needs to exist.
Start with the foundations of your business. For someone wanting to start a web design business, this would mean setting up a one- or two-page website. It doesn’t mean deciding who your niche is. It doesn’t mean figuring out how you’re going to market it. Leave those for the next iteration of your business. Continually add the essential services and features to what you’re doing.
This is key, too. The things you add to your business must be essential. Don’t add things for the sake of adding things. Say no many more times than you say yes. Do only what you need to do to get where you want to go and nothing more.
One of the best ways to grow a business is to apply a time management technique called timeboxing. This is essentially a breaking down of your business into a series of smaller projects that have their own goals.
So let’s go back to the web design company example. What are the essential features of a web design company. Well, they have to have:
- A list of services
- A list of prices for those services
- A website promoting those services
- A method of accepting payment
It could be much more in depth than that, but those are the basics. If we were to apply timeboxing to our development process then we might give ourselves one week to create a list of the services we want to offer then another week to research what the prices ought to be then another week to set up a website. This way we are continually adding the essential features to the business in quick iterations.
It’s never overwhelming to focus on delivering one amazing feature at a time over a short period.
Constantly Revise
Developing a business in this manner necessitates that all of your processes be in perpetual review. Nothing is ever at it’s final state. You can always narrow it down even further to make your business more efficient and more successful.
For example, starting out as a web design company you’ll likely offer general web design services. In the first few weeks, however, you might see that you are getting more projects from non-profit organizations who want their existing sites maintained. If that’s the case, you would take another week to revise your services based on the new information. Then you take another week to revise your prices and another to revise your website.
It’s a neverending process of improvement that also manages to keep you from getting overwhelmed.
If you want to start an online business, do it today! The wonderful thing about the web is that you don’t have to know exactly what you’re going to do. You just have to get started.
Photo by laffy4k
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This sounds a lot like what Steve Blank writes about in his work on customer development.
I can’t go to a conference without hearing experienced multi-millionaire entrepreneurs pumping this kind of process.
A business without any customers (but with plenty of funding) is more like an expensive hobby than a company.
I’d really like to hear more about how you apply this process to lead generation and sales. That tends to be where my organizational method breaks down. I’m great at it in short bursts, but it’s like a completely different way of thinking to the actual work, so I have trouble organizing the two.
I don’t think we really have a formal method for applying this to sales. We have pretty much no overhead and what we’re selling isn’t cheap so we only need a handful of clients at a time. When the time comes we have a ‘networking’ week where our entire focus is connecting with people. This is where all of our clients have come from. We never really sell anyone on what we do until they’ve indicated that they like what we offer.
Anyway, lately this networking week has become less and less important because we’ve been getting better at networking. It’s something we can do all the time now so we’re seeing a steady influx of interest from potential clients.
But my best guess would be timeboxing networking. I’ll be exploring the subject in the next few weeks and see if I can’t come up with some better ideas.
That makes a lot of sense! Thanks for sharing.
Interesting … and making me think. This appears to be so true, yet not established in the mindset of most: “For someone wanting to start a web design business, this would mean setting up a one- or two-page website. It doesn’t mean deciding who your niche is.” Now, of course it’s nice to know your niche and whatnot from the start, but it’s not a requirement. At least for the persons that prefer doing cool stuff instead of doing weeks of Adsense research. Good one, JD.
From my experience, it’s almost impossible to know who your niche is until you get yourself out there. This is all a part of being agile. The goal should most definitely be to find a niche, but if you’re starting with a niche then you might neglect to find or see bigger opportunities. I think it’s better to start broad and narrow things down based on what you like and what you see working.