what is a business plan

Excellent insightful presentation. I contribute teaching entrepreneurship in the George Washington University School of Business CFEE (“Center for Entrepreneurial Excellence”) and also serve as CEO of Sante Corp, a new venture with proprietary technology developing a new web-based personal health management system. My recently published book Worm on a Chopstick : Understanding Today’s Entrepreneurial Age: Directions, Strategies, Management Perspectives shared perspectives and tips on what entrepreneurial company managers need to know to move to beyond a start-up to create a high growth company.

Many excellent management tips and messages in Bing Gordon’s video I am sharing with both students and colleagues. There are 3 messages in particular I am emphasizing:

• The Need to Balance Management and Entrepreneurial Responsibilities Entrepreneurship is messy and often frenetic, pursuing innovative technologies, new product launches and building an organization with minimal capital. CEO must nuture and balance entrepreneurial culture with clear focus on tightly managing results. I find many entrepreneurs lack the ‘traditional’ management skills and have a ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy- these new management skills can and must be learned. Bing Gordon’s presentation clearly reinforces this point.
• Quantifying Objectives with Trackable Milestones Gordon describes Intel’s ‘OKR’ or ‘Objectives and Key Results’ management approach – managers set objectives and identify and track 2 to 3 results, and managers expected to achieve 70 percent of results. Very important discipline which helps companies grow and send messages to Boards and investors. I have used KPI’s (‘Key Performance Indicators’) for years in many global businesses, discussed KPIs in my recent book, and counseled many CEO’s to adopt and use these tools . Also proposed a similar approach to track large numbers of new inner-city entrepreneurial companies in a new “Entrepreneurial Empowerment Program (EEP)” I am proposing to the administration. Excellent discipline and should be more widely promoted.

• CEO’s Need to Implement Scalable Processes CEO’s need to think and plan long term- that means understanding that scalable processes must be established early, what are the objectives of these processes, when are they needed, what cost-effective solutions can we implement now to serve as ‘building-blocks’ as business scales. This message is often missed by entrepreneurial managers struggling with day-to-day challenges with limited resources.

Thanks for sharing an excellent, insightful presentation.

Paul B. Silverman