Archive for Inspire
Caine’s Arcade – A 9 Year Old Future Millionaire
Posted by: | CommentsAnd just a beautiful story as well
Artscroll iPad Edition of the Talmud
Posted by: | CommentsAbsolutely amazing! Can’t wait till this is released! Love to see amazing initiatives using technology like this!
How do I know if my idea is a good idea?
Posted by: | Comments(This article originally appeared in print for BizNess Magazine)
In my previous article we talked about “where do good ideas come from”. In this article we will discuss how do you know if your idea is a good one.
Every week people come to me with business ideas and 80% of the time I try to talk them out of it. It pains me to see people throwing good money after bad ideas or even taking good ideas, but executing them horribly.
But let’s say you have an idea your excited about. The first thing you should do is some basic research online. If you think you have a unique idea and that is what is going to be your selling point, then you need to make sure it is unique. You can start with Google and search for key terms about your idea and industry and see what comes up. If your idea is an internet based idea then a great site you want to check out is http://www.go2web20.net it’s a directory of all the latest internet startups and you can do a search by keyword.
Another idea you can do is go to a domain registrar such as Dynadot.com and start checking for what you believe would be the perfect name for your idea. Search for 10 different names and see if the names are not available perhaps there is a website already live that is doing what you just thought of or something similar.
You also want to search on blogs such as TechCrunch.com and Mashable.com since they have been covering startups for the last several years. Keep in mind that even if someone is doing something similar, it does not mean that you don’t have a shot at success. No two companies are exactly alike and competition just proves there is a market for your idea.
Also it is important to keep in mind that perhaps your idea exists in other locations or countries, but perhaps does not yet exist in Israel. For example: Instead of opening yet another pizza shop, why not open a healthy fresh sandwich shop? Subway’s has been the #1 Franchise for a number of years now, so just follow their model!
My latest startup is a company called SportsFan.me. It is a cross between Facebook & Twitter for sports fans. In my presentation to investors I list 12 different companies that are in the same space as me, but I can also show how what is unique about us and how we are different. It also doesn’t hurt that sports is such a huge market with plenty of room for competition and niches.
So now that you know your idea either doesn’t exist or it doesn’t exist with the nuances you have for it or it doesn’t exist locally, now it’s time to start speaking to people.
There are 3 types of people you need to speak to before starting a business:
- Your Spouse
- Accountants, Lawyers, & Businessmen
- Potential Customers
Your Spouse
Starting any business takes a huge commitment and toll on your family and the surest way to success or failure is the support of your spouse. Make sure she/he is on board with your idea as there will be many long hours and a ton of focus that your startup will need. The more time and focus you put into your business means less time and focus for your family.
Accountants, Lawyers, & Businessmen
You should go over your business model with a business accountant and make sure that your startup is viable. If you’re opening a restaurant you need to keep in mind the taxes you need to pay and the costs for Employees and benefits you need to provide plus the cost of hashgacha and having a mashgiach on premises; Ongoing advertising & marketing costs etc. At the end of the day you may find that in order to be successful you will have to charge prices that people won’t be willing to pay or you will have to give smaller portions that won’t make customers happy.
It is also very important to speak to your lawyer and get his feedback and advice. Make sure everything you are doing is legal and realize what the ongoing legal costs if any are. Also many lawyers may have connections to other business people or investors so it’s good to discuss your project with them.
Now the most important person in this category to speak to is a successful businessman. Doesn’t have to be someone local, but it is best if you can meet him in person. It is also better to speak to other people in the industry you are entering. Don’t be so worried about someone stealing you idea, it almost never happens. A great way to find people in your industry is using LinkedIn (http://linkedin.com). LinkedIn is a Social Network for Professionals and Entrepreneurs. They have a group feature which allows you to communicate with other like minded people and to discuss specific industry topics. I have joined several groups in the professional sports industry and that way I can keep tabs on the latest on what’s going on in the business of professional sports as well as meeting other people in the industry. You should post questions to the group and join the conversations taking place. This is a great way to meet people and to find the ones that can be of most value to you.
Another great website to check out is Quora (http://quora.com). Quora is a Questions and Answer website for business topics. You are not allowed to promote your business on the site or you may be banned, but it is a tremendous resource for almost every topic imaginable when starting a business. It is also a great place to interact with well known and successful entrepreneurs who often use the site as a way to give back to people by contributing.
Potential Customers
This is the most critical of the research you must do as well as the one that is most often overlooked or skipped over. You must, must, must speak to potential customers before you invest any money in your idea! I cannot stress enough how important this step is. You may think that if you love such a product then everyone will love that product to! There are two questions you need to ask:
- Do people want the product you are offering?
- Even if they want the product, are they willing to pay the price you need to charge?
If your product is geared towards Mothers then contact 100 mothers and ask them if they would use such a product and then ask if they would pay for the product and how much they would be willing to pay. Also ask them if they could improve the product how would they do it? Very often discussing your product with potential customers will lead to even greater ideas. If you are creating software for a business then contact 25 businesses. Ask them if they would use it and how much they would pay. You may find out in both these cases that either people don’t want your product, or even if they do, they would not pay the amount you would need to create and profit from your idea.
Now that your idea is ready to launch, you will probably need some funding to get started. That will be the topic of my next article.
Nachum Kligman is a Serial Entrepreneur and speaker. He is the Founder of Qoof & Ideago –StartUp Lab, and the Co-founder of PeerBid.com, TeesAtRisk.com, KidsOutlet.com, and the now launched SportsFan.me amongst many other Internet startups. He is also a partner in Cellar 18, a new boutique wine store located in Ramat Bet Shemesh.
Where do good ideas come from?
Posted by: | Comments“There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come” – Victor Hugo
Literally I get ideas every single day and this has been going on since Grade School. When I say ideas, I mean ideas about everything. In fact you also have ideas every single day. It could be a Chiddush in the Gemara your learning or it could be an idea on how to use your Shabbos leftovers to create a new dish your kids will actually eat. Idea’s happen every day to everyone, but what you do with them is another story.
Let’s focus on business ideas. An entrepreneurs mind is trained to look for different business opportunities. So when I’m reading an article in a business magazine or I walk into a store, ideas are always popping into my head. I would say that 98% of the ideas I get I disregard in about 2 minutes. When an idea comes in, the immediate questions I ask and then answer myself are:
- Is it an idea that can earn money?
- Do I have the resources?
- Is it worth the time and effort to put in?
- Is there something similar out there already?
- Is the idea big enough?
If I can answer those questions correctly then I will write up a brief summary of the idea and place it in my “Idea File”. My “Idea File” is basically an email account I keep where I just sent my ideas to. Then when I’m looking for a good idea I just go through the list. Very often going through the list will bring up and generate other ideas.
One of the ways I know if an idea is a “good” idea is if that idea keeps coming back to me through the days and nights that follow. Do I start to get excited about the idea? Is it keeping me up at night? Etc.
So how do you find good ideas?
Here is a list of some of the ways:
- Find a real need that does not yet have a solution
- Read Business Magazines and Books
- Follow Blogs that talk about StartUps such as Mashable and TechCrunch
- Copy a successful idea, but put your own spin on it
- Look at great solutions for one industry and see if you can apply it to another industry
- Get some friends together and brainstorm different ideas
- EUREKA!! – Sometimes they just come to you from Shamayim!
The absolute best ideas come from finding a real need that is not being fulfilled. There are thousands of stories of everyday people that find a real need and then end up creating a solution and making money from it. If you yourself find a need, chances are there are others out there as well. One of my favorite stories out there is from a woman named Tiffany Krumins and her creation Ava the Elephant:
Tiffany’s passion for helping sick children has been evident through her years of experience working with kids, including special needs and childhood cancer patients, which brought Ava the Elephant ™ to life! She realized no product on the market resolved the common problem of giving children medicine. So she took matters into her own hands and created the first Ava from clay!
She found that it was not necessarily children’s dislike for medicine that made it so difficult. After all, they can make it taste like BUBBLEGUM these days! The process was the scary part.
Realizing this, her first goal was to hide the medicine dropper completely! Her second was to make the child smile or laugh, hence the sweet voice! Last, but not least, she wanted their new little friend to praise them for a job well done! (http://avatheelephant.com)
Tiffany created a medicine dispenser for children in the shape of a friendly elephant! Just simply put in the syringe with the medicine and you now have made giving medicine to a child a much easier process. Besides the fact that it is a great story, the other half of the story is that she did something with her idea! How many times have you come up with an idea that you just let slide? This reminds me of a great quote I just saw:
“In the dictionary, the word “idea” is a noun. “Idea” should actually a verb, because an idea is only real if you actually do something with it.”- Jeff Haden
Another question that BizNess Magazine has asked is “If there is a successful business in Haifa, does that mean the business will be successful here?”
I actually see this as an “idea” question. Meaning, the real question is “Can I take someone else’s idea that he has been successful with and also be successful with it?
This is in fact another way to get “ideas” for starting a business. Of course you may want to tweak it a bit or take the idea and use it for another niche, but it is definitely a great way to generate ideas.
Success though has nothing to do with how good of an idea it is as there are so many factors that go into what makes a business successful. You can take the best idea in the world, but if you are not able to execute the idea then your chances of success are zero.
But since this is an article about ideas let’s take a recent example in the business world of copying a successful idea.
Everyone by now I’m sure has heard of Groupon. Groupon is one of the fastest growing companies ever to hit the internet. In fact they are currently looking to go public at a value of between 20 to 25 Billion Dollars! Not bad for a company that first launched in November 2008, just under three years ago.
But with their huge success came thousands of companies that took their ideas and either created similar sites for their country or for a specific niche like business products or children’s products. In fact they have spawned a whole new industry with even Google (who failed at buying them for $6 Billion) getting in on the game. Some of these “copy cats” actually were bought by GroupOn for millions of dollars. In just Israel alone there are more than 30 of these types of sites! You can check them all out in English at AngloDeals.co.il. In the States there are many Jewish versions of the site getting in on the action with KosherKouponz.com showing some recent success.
But for all the successful copy cat’s there are thousands more that did not succeed. Was it because the idea was bad? Absolutely not, as we see the idea is amazing. It is the implementation of the idea that went wrong. Just because an idea fails, does not mean it was a bad idea.
Now that you have an idea on how to find an idea J in the next article we will discuss how to know if your idea is a good one or not!
(This was originally print in the latest edition of Bizness Magazine)
Nachum Kligman is a Serial Entrepreneur and speaker. He is the Founder of Qoof & Ideago –StartUp Lab, and the Co-founder of PeerBid.com, TeesAtRisk.com, KidsOutlet.com, and the now launched SportsFan.me amongst many other Internet startups. He is also a partner in Cellar 18, a new boutique wine store located in Ramat Bet Shemesh.
What do you do when you get an idea?
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How often do you get a business idea? I get them pretty much everyday and they usually come in one of three ways.
The first way is when I’m reading a business article or blog post about a new company and a spin on the idea or applying it to another niche will come to mind. Usually I will think about them for a few minutes and 90% of the time I will decide for whatever reasons that it is not an idea worth pursuing.
The second way is when I find a need. Usually I will hear about it from someone or I will discover the need on my own. These are more exciting ideas because when there is a real need you can figure out pretty quickly that there may be others that have the same need. And if there are others and the need is not being filled then you have a good potential business idea.
The third way is when the idea just comes to me, could be while I’m trying to sleep or usually on Shabbat when my mind is more at rest. These are usually the big ideas I get and the ones I really get the most excited about, but like in the first two ways I get ideas the majority of them I dismiss with some research.
So what so I do when I get an idea that is worth “keeping”? Since it is virtually impossible for me to develop all of my ideas at one time I keep them in storage. I have a separate Gmail Email account I use just for when I get an idea worth keeping and then I will just write down a few paragraphs and send them to my special “idea” account. This way I can keep track of them and refer to them when I have some time to develop a new idea or for when I find an entrepreneur that is looking to develop something or an investor that wants to invest in a new idea and I will try to match the best idea with the person I’m talking to.
Many times I will also secure the best domain name for the idea I have, that way when I am ready or I find the right person I already have the perfect name secured.
What do you do when you get an idea?
Summer Break? Not for Entrepreneurs!
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Yes, the summer is in full swing. Kids are off to camp and it is really, really hot outside. Globaly the summer months are always a slow down for businesses. People take vacations, it’s a great time for the beach, BBQ’s, and even weddings! (My younger brother is even getting married this summer!)
In Israel it is also a time when friends and family come to visit since Israel seems to be a popular vacation spot for Jews.
But is it true for entrepreneurs? For StartUp companies?
The honest truth is that if you are an entrepreneur and involved in a startup you don’t get to take vacations like everyone else. Sure there may be some distractions and that’s ok, you need to have some down time or you will burn yourself out, it is also a good time to spend more times with your kids then you get to during the year, but if you have a startup then you are on call 24/6. You owe it to your investors, partners and customers to continue to give your very best.
Now is the time to plan your fall season marketing campaigns and fundraising initiatives. Time to set-up meetings with potential clients. Want to relax a bit? That’s great, but take a good business book with you that can help reinvigorate you with good ideas. I know its hot outside and I know all your friends are taking off and having a good time, but you are not like them. You are not about the monthly paycheck. You are an entrepreneur! You are changing the world and making it a better place! Success is not easy, but it feels a lot better than a vacation.
Work now, rest with success.
Enjoy your summer.
First I need to say thanks to Avi Fine for sending this my way. Have you ever watched a video that just made you throw your hands up and say “I Give Up” or “You Win”. I am an entrepreneur and I love coming up with great ideas and seeing them come to fruition and I have lots of great ideas, but then I watched this video and said to myself why am I even bothering. This guy is the future. I told Avi that Micosoft or the like should buy him for $25 million a year and that would probably be a bargain. Watch this video, but don’t give up, get inspired!
Video: Israel: Leader of Business Innovation (NBC)
Posted by: | CommentsThe Video Speaks For Itself 
Be Proud!
Video – Amazon.com buys Zappos for a package worth $850,000,000
Posted by: | CommentsCongrads to everyone at Zappos! This is a smart move by Amazon and a great reward to everyone at Zappos that made the company so great!
Do a little research on the culture at Zappos and the agressive customer service tactics to be the very best and you will fully understand why they were so successful. Great inspiration to every entrepreneur.
Seven Years Ago Today, My life as an Israeli Entrepreneur began
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Seven years ago today, on July 9th, 2002, I moved to Israel from Passaic, NJ with my wife and two year old daughter on the very first Nefesh B’Nefesh flight. Thank you G-d for you are forever good. Thank you Rabbi Fass and Nefesh B’Nefesh for everything you have done for us and thousands of others fulfilling prophocies, fighting back against terrorism and making all our dreams come true.
Rabbi Fass & Tony Gelbart founded Nefesh B’Nefesh in response to a terrorist attack that murdered a cousin of Rabbi Fass. Rabbi Fass decided to respond and take action. For every Jew that is murdered we will bring another 10 Jews in his place. And Nefesh B’Nefesh was born.
Today thousands of familes have moved to Israel directly because of Nefesh B’Nefesh. Today I want to thank Rabbi Fass & Tony Gelbart and all the amazing staff, donors and friends of Nefesh B’Nefesh that has enabled me to fulfill my dream of living in raising my family and living as an entrepreneur in the Holy Land of Israel.
Studies will be made and books will be written about the entreprenurial endeavors of NBN and how they learned to cut through the Red Tape, raise millions of dollars, and run their organization is such an amazing way. Each person that has the merit to work for NBN really cares and goes the extra mile to make other people happy and to make their move to Israel as smooth and relaxed as can be.
