Today I had the pleasure of meeting with Frank Koehl, the founder of FwdVault.com.
FwdVault.com is a service that allows personal and business users to backup their important computer files quickly and easily, without having to install or configure any software programs.
After just a few short minutes into our conversation, it became apparent to me why Frank has been so successful in business at such a young age. He’s energetic, positive and sharp as a tack as far as business savvy goes.
I learned a TON from my short meeting with Frank but there were 3 extremely valuable lessons that I had to make note of.
1. Record Everything (in Excel)
2. Passion, Skill, Fill A Need
3. Ask for Feedback
Record Everything (in Excel)
Frank told me that he’s got an excel workbook with about 16 pages of data. He said it’s amazing the kind of insights you gain about your business when you actually keep a record of each detail pertaining to your business.
This tool became invaluable when he was trying to make a decision about the best methods to market his business. He said once he put everything down into Excel, it became obvious which method was responsible for the majority of his business whereas before he went through this process, the information was just floating around in his head with no clear answer.
I had done this already in order to make income projections, but I had never done it for any other aspect of the business like referrals for example. Referrals have probably been the largest source of my customers but I never took the time to record this information.
Passion, Skill, Fill A Need
Before we finished our lunch I told Frank about a couple different business ventures I am thinking about pursuing but can’t make up my mind which one is the best.
He said to me:
There are three things you need in order to be successful as an Entrepreneur.
You need to choose something you are passionate about, you need to be skilled at doing that thing and you need to be able to fill a need doing it.
Passion and skill are doubly important for solopreneurs and bootstrappers, which you are both right now.
Passion is what gets you started, and keeps you going on those days when the whole thing feels like a complete flop. No one will ever believe in your idea as much as you will.
You also need directly convertible skills in your new business — my programming skills, your sales skills for example – is a must for anyone starting a business themselves (i.e. versus funding a startup and hiring staff).
You need to be able to get past most of the inevitable unforeseen hurdles on your own. Expertise in one or more areas is also the most likely route to finding a real need in the marketplace.
The “Filling A Need” part is absolutely critical, and so many people don’t give it due attention. Whatever you do/make, it must cure a real pain point for a decent number of real people.
Startups fail for a whole host of a reasons, but one of the bigger fail-inducers is when the founder(s) have a skill and a passion, but end up building a solution looking for problem. Find the audience and the need FIRST.
Awesome advice!
Then later in the day I listened to one of Dan Miller’s PodCasts where he said almost the exact same thing!
Dan said “In order to create a successful business, you need Passion, Skill and an Economic Model”. By Economic Model he means you need a plan on how you are going to use your skills to make money doing something you are passionate about.
So, to combine the words of wisdom from Frank and Dan, when starting a business venture, make sure you have the following 4 elements:
1. Passion for the business you are starting
2. Skills in that particular area
3. Make sure your product or service fills a need
4. Create an Economic Model, a system or process to generate income
This is so true. When I look at other ventures I have started in the past, the main reason they all failed was because I was lacking in 1 or more of these 4 attributes.
Ask for Feedback
This is one of those things that I’ve read over and over again and it seems so obvious, yet I have rarely done this.
I need to get feedback from Current Customers, Lost Customers, Prospects that Never became Customers.
Some questions to ask are:
Why did you use my service?
What did you like?
What did you not like?
How could I have done better?
Did I fall short, meet or exceed your expectations?
What could I have done to make your experience amazing?
What could I have done to make you rave about my service to others?
Would you recommend my service to other businesses like yours?
What event or situation prompted interest in my service?
Better questions = Better Results = Better Business Improvements = More AND Better Customers.
I could go on and on and I probably should make a list of these. Actually, I should put these into Excel to keep track of them for one but also to see which questions yield the best results!
