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The Zigzag Principle
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The Zigzag Principle - Rich Christiansen - May 2012
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Jacob
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May 01, 2012 10:32AM
This is the official discussion thread for our May book, The Zigzag Principle.
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May is the month for Entrepreneurs in our book group. The last 5 years have taught our global economy that the only security you have is what you build for yourself. Our May author has founded or co-founded 32 businesses, each with less than $10K. Of those, 11 were complete failures, but 11 have become multimillion-dollar companies. Rich is the best selling author of Bootstrap Business and we will be reading his new book, The Zigzag Principle.
Watch This Video Introduction from the Author: http://youtu.be/K5dpnioAnFI
Have finally got a kindle so that I can download this month's book and make my life easier. Looking forward to reading it.
In reading the book I keep wondering to myself, how long should I let a new venture continue without profitability before I walk away? What are everyone's thoughts?
That is a very interesting question. I think that you need to evaluate why the venture is still not profitable. and of course there can be many reasons, lack of revenue, business model were costs are higher than revenue, lack of clients, poor product/service, need to reinvest in the business for growth (or R&D) and many more. I think that if you can first evaluate the reasons for lack of profitability and evaluate if these will continue to hinder profitability for a long time (or forever) it is easier to walk away. If you can set specific time frames when these issues can be solved, it might be easier to stay. I will also recommend for you Seth Godin book The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit
It might give you some answers / ideas. also I Malcolm Gladwell speak in "The tipping point" or maybe in "outliers" about the amount of hours (10,000) to get to be good in what you do. The sad part is that sometimes you do not really know if you are just pushing for nothing until you invested quite a bit of time...and of course there is the opportunity cost of sticking with one thing and not switching to something else.
For me one critical aspect is the vision of the venture, if that is impaired or can not ever be achieved it is time to walk away.
Not sure that is the thoughts that you were looking for.
I think it depends on what stage you are in the venture process. For example, are you in the marketplace and being ignored or are you still developing the product?I work for two start-ups and both of them really rely on the lean start-up model of minimum viable product and testing. Have you done user testing with friends and family or a random craigslist sample?
Hi, i don' t know if this posted anywhere or is at a standard time but what time is the webinar at today & where do i go to log in? Thanks
Irial, sorry for the late reply. We did record the webinar and you can view it from the membership area of the www.12booksgroup.com site!
Sorry for a late reply. First I wanted to thank Rich and 12 Books Group for the free copy of Zigzag Principle I won. I really loved this book. It was to the point and didn't take 3 or 4 chapters to get to what the book was about. It was straight forward and gave me insight on what I am doing now is just a major zig and I don't have to give up my ultimate goal. It helped me to adjust my detour into a zig that will help me accomplish the goal. So thank you Rich. I have motivation again.
