Rapid growth is good, right? Right?

It’s the ultimate entrepreneurial dream. You start a business, struggle for a bit to get the business model right, then whammo – it takes off.

Sales are growing almost daily it seems and demand is strong. Let’s allow some more credit (sales) to really ride this demand. Now we need more inventory – come on suppliers, we need it yesterday. Pay a bit more to get it quickly, it doesn’t matter. We need some more room too, get hold of something. We need som… Continue

ATTRIBUTION: The following blog is repeated here with permission from the writer Louis Coutts who you can contact at couttslm@bigpond.com for comment or to join his mailing list.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This is a great story received from my friend Neil Thomas

Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their w… Continue

When I was at the American Society of Training & Development (ASTD) International Conference this summer I attended a very interesting talk about analysing the root cause of things that happen. It's a common sense field of enquiry, one that we consciously or unconsciously engage every day when we work out why things happen. But it was a very useful reminder to look further back for more fundamental causes of what we observe. The title Root Cause Analysis was new to me but one that I a… Continue

I was on the London Underground with the Michaela Sulke-Trezek, the Head of Accounting Comes Alive Europe. We were on our way from London City Airport to Piccadilly Circus, returning from some meetings in Frankfurt. She suddenly looked over to me and said "Look at this... it's good news". Not sure what she was referring to at first, I realized that it was about 8pm and we were at Canary Wharf in the Docklands. That's the stop where all the investment bankers from Morgan Stanley et al get on. Mic… Continue

Whether you have a board or not, act like you do. One day you may want to sell part or all of your business and you will be in a much stronger negotiating position if you have this stuff sorted.

This blog came from a question I was asked “What should I be showing my board each month?” I was a bit surprised at the question as it seemed obvious, but perhaps not.

Your board is comprised of directors. They could be family members, friends, fellow founders, invitees or even self-invited private equ… Continue