The Business Hub

03/05/2016

What does an English teacher know about math? Plenty, if your name is Jack Ma.

Today, Jack raised $4.5 billion (the largest private tech investment ever) for Ant Financial: A company he created in December 2014. The company has gone from zero to $60 billion in value in just 16 months.

Jack Ma has never taken no for an answer. In September, 2014, when he was not able to list his company, Alibaba, in Hong Kong, and with China banning any foreign ownership of its companies, Jack got around the rules by setting up a Cayman Island shell corporation which would receive a percentage of the profits of Alibaba.

He then listed the Cayman Island company on the New York Stock Exchange, raising $25 billion in the largest IPO in history - without giving any of the shares in his China company away.

Before the listing, he took the payment side of the business, Alipay, and moved it into a separate, private company that he controlled, called Ant Financial. As Alibaba has been making headlines over the last year, Ant Financial has been quietly growing as Jack’s second billion dollar business.

Ant Financial now reaches 450 million users (More than the population of the US and UK combined), and has given out 20 million loans to entrepreneurs in China. Alibaba receives 37.5% of the profits from Ant Financial, but does not own any of it. Jack has managed to spin the business off entirely from Alibaba, and then grow it alongside Alibaba while entirely under his personal control, from zero to $60 billion in value.

This has allowed him to pursue his vision of helping the small guys while raising the money he needs from the financial markets and without losing control or giving away any ownership.

Jack’s next step? The former English Teacher plans to list Ant Financial on the China stock market later this year, which is likely to double his current net worth of $22 billion.

While too many entrepreneurs get caught up in how much of their pie to give away, Jack understands that when you own the bakery, you can always make another pie.

How can you create partnerships and raise financing creatively, while keeping true to your vision? How can you organise your own resources smarter? Take a tip from Jack, and never take no for an answer.

“They called me ‘Crazy Jack’. I think crazy is good. We’re crazy, but we’re not stupid.” ~ Jack Ma

22/04/2016

Have you ever been rejected for a job? Brian Acton has. After 11 years at Yahoo! and out of a job at 38 years old, Brian went job hunting... first to Twitter (rejected) then to Facebook (rejected).

What do you do when you’re 38 years old, competing unsuccessfully against 20-somethings for a job as a systems engineer? If you’re Brian, you go out and play frisbee...

Two years earlier, he had travelled South America playing ultimate frisbee with Jan Koum, who he had met while working at Ernst & Young as a security tester. Now, in the midst of his job rejections, he met up with Jan again for a game of frisbee.

It was while playing, Jan told Brian he was working on a start-up to create a new kind of mobile app, but he had run out of money. Jan had lived on welfare with his parents when he first arrived to the US from Ukraine. Not wanting to go back on food stamps, he asked Brian for advice on whether he should quit and start looking for a job.

Admiring Jan for his courage in starting his own company, Brian replied “You’d be an idiot to quit now. Give it a few more months.”

The topic turned to Brian’s success in getting a new job (which was non-existent) and it was only a matter of time before Jan (who had previously been rejected from a job at Facebook) had turned Brian’s advice on himself.

He persuaded Brian to quit the job hunt and join him on his start-up, creating a new messaging app, “WhatsApp”.

Brian and Jan had one thing in common - Ultimate Frisbee. Other than that, they turned out to be complimentary to each other in every other way. As Brian says, they are “Yin and Yang, I’m the naive optimist, he’s more paranoid. I pay attention to bills and taxes, he pays attention to our product. He’s CEO. I just make sure stuff gets done.”

In a job hunt, all your weaknesses are exposed. In a start-up, your weakness can be supported by your team member’s strength. So becoming an entrepreneur is easier than being an employee.

It took a few months of convincing but Brian finally decided to take the step, reject the rejecters, and join Jan.

Brian managed to raise some funds to keep the two going, while they worked out of the Red Rock Cafe in Mountain View. With no office and no overheads, they put 100% focus at growing WhatsApp as the messaging app with “No Ads. No Games. No Gimmicks.”

In the first year, revenue grew to only $5,000 a month, but user growth boomed. Brian and Jan would switch from “free” to “paid” for the app (charging $1) when users began growing too much. When they saw people would even pay for the app, Brian said “You know, I think we can actually stay paid.”

The company stayed on an exponential growth path and, four years later, Facebook - the company that had rejected both founders - bought WhatsApp for $19 billion, making both Brian and Jan multi-billionaires.

As a symbolic gesture to their difficult beginnings, the two signed the purchase papers on the steps of the building where Jan’s parents would pick up their food stamps.

And Brian remembers a second thing outside of Frisbee that the two have in common, and which led to their success: “We’re part of the Facebook reject club.”

It took 4 years from ultimate frisbee and ultimate rejection to Brian and Jan’s $19 billion success.

4 years from now will be the year 2020. Where will you be in 2020?

“Sometimes the best gain is to lose.” ~ George Herbert

08/04/2016

Today's !

08/04/2016

03/04/2016

1. You have full control over your destiny. You call the shots and make the decisions that ultimately determine the success or failure of your business. Nobody will get in the way of your vision.

2. You become part of a family. The entrepreneurial culture is almost like a big family -- and you won’t find a better group of people willing to offer advice and help than fellow entrepreneurs.

3. You have the opportunity to change lives. Have an idea for a product or service that has the potential to make a huge impact? Go for it -- nothing is stopping you!

4. You never feel undervalued. If you have ideas to make the business better you can implement them right away -- you don’t have to hope that someone in a higher position will give you the time of day and listen to your suggestions.

5. Become healthier. A flexible schedule allows you to create a fitness routine and stick to it. Hit the gym early in the morning, at lunch or in the evening -- whatever works for you.

6. Turn your passion and beliefs into a business. Are you passionate about health and fitness? Become a nutritional consultant or open a gym. You have the ability to create a business as well as impact people through your passions and beliefs.

7. You get to constantly learn. As an entrepreneur you are always learning lessons -- sometimes the hard way. It is a priceless education that you can’t get in a classroom.

8. Bad days could always be worse. A bad day as an entrepreneur is better than a bad day working for someone else.

9. You become an expert problem solver. As a business owner you become very resourceful and over time you will learn to overcome anything and solve any problem placed in front of you.

10. Create a legacy. Creating a successful brand to the point where it leaves a personal legacy behind is appealing and serves as motivation for many entrepreneurs.

22/03/2016

Why moms are the best entrepreneurs?

1- They make it up. Entrepreneurs are really good at “Innovating.” And “creating.” and “launching.” all terms very Familiar in the Startup space, and all fancy ways of merely saying That we make things up. All The time. Ask business owners and They’ll likely tell you that, at any one time, they had no idea what They were doing, either. Many never feel like they do. Similarly, When parents raise a child, they also have no idea what’s coming—Minute-to-minute. You know that special way moms predict the Needs, wants and desires of their children? They can’t. Just like Entrepreneurs. We’re really good at taking the hits as they come And figuring it out along the way.

2.) They're expert multi-taskers. It’s been said that women are Superb at doing more than one thing at the same time. In fact, Researchers at the University of London found that “Men have More difficulty multi-tasking.” Whether or not it’s a scientific fact, It’s not a choice, either, for parents raising children. We need to Take on the skill of handling two (or three? or seven?) things at Once, and many of us do it with ease. Entrepreneurs always run Into the multi-tasking demand. How else do you accomplish the 483 tasks a day that a business demands? For moms running Their own businesses, it’s a no-brainer.

3.) They tell everyone. Half the battle running any business is Getting the word out about a product or service. Sales and Marketing are the most frequently discussed topics at any of our Founding Moms’ Exchanges because they are so important to Growing revenues. And fortunately, women know how to spread The word. We’re naturals. Malcolm Gladwell said that “talking to People is the most useful and efficient way of finding new things,” And I’d add that it also helps to build your business. Which we do Well. Since moms are often already doing it—about their families, About their work, and about their businesses—they have a one-Up on fellow business owners trying to get the word out.

08/03/2016

Four things make up 79% of all business failures:

#1 - Building something nobody wants (36%)
#2 - Hiring poorly (18%)
#3 - Lack of focus (13%)
#4 - Failing to market & sell (12%)

How to best avoid these failures:

#1 - Always start with the customer, not the product. Get your beta group / user group of customers and work with them to deliver what they love. People will pay you to do what they love, not to just do what you love.

#2 - Outsource to experts who manage themselves, not workers who need to be managed. Hire people who let you do more of what you do best, not people who take you away from your talents because they need to be managed.

#3 - Once opportunities begin to grow, don't get defocused. Anything that doesn't add to your customer's experience isn't worth doing.

#4 - Don't fail by having a great product that no one knows about. Don't rely on someone else to sell your product until you have more sales than you can handle. Don't make sales by closing customers. Create buyers by opening relationships.

#5 - More than all of the above, maximise failures that steer you (testing and measuring) and avoid failures that sink you (when you run out of money and time). Fail passionately and fail often, earning and learning with each failure, so it's you that keeps failing (and learning) and not your company!

"The biggest risk is not taking any risk.. In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks."
~ Mark Zuckerberg

And...

"Never, never, never give up."
~ Winston Churchill

06/03/2016

5 important rules to ace your :

1-The Idea
The idea is considered as the most important element for your Business success but the idea only is not enough, your planing, Implementing and timing is your tools to enhance your idea.

2-Focus on a Niche with in a Niche
The most successful startups these days are focused on a very Precise market. It isn’t enough anymore to focus on just a niche Market.

3-The Right Team
Working alone minimize your odds in succeeding, so you must Pick the right person for the right job to execute the high level Goals of the company.

4-Marketing
Branding, packaging and marketing your product or service will Help you to establish yourself within the market and to define Your self between your competitors.

5-Capital
Capital is the element that takes from planning level to Operational level, at the early stage of your startup you may not find an investor to fund you, so you can use personal fund or familial fund.

Sorry Leonardo DiCaprio but we had to.

05/03/2016

A message to entrepreneurs: Keep at it, because you’re leading the world’s 5th wave of exponential economic growth:

Up until 1780, world economic activity was relatively flat, with the Gross World Product (all economic value creation worldwide) under US$200 billion for over 5,000 years.

The world then went through exponential growth over 200 years from 1800 to 2000, doubling every 20 years, with Gross World Product growing from US$200 billion to $40 trillion.

The four waves of exponential growth have been:

1. The Industrial revolution
2. The race for oil
3. Corporate capitalism
4. Financial markets

Each wave grew and fell in power over around 50 years each.
Each wave led to a global transfer of wealth.
Each age changed all the rules.

In the 15 years from 2000 to 2015, despite a dotcom crash and global crisis, Gross World Product has doubled again, from $40 trillion to over $80 trillion - We continue to add value to each other at an accelerating rate.

What is this fifth wave we’re in now? Entrepreneurial start-ups.

The rules have changed again:

It’s no longer about economies of scale, but economies of speed.
It’s no longer about getting money but giving value.
Today collaboration beats competition.
Today David beats Goliath.

This wave has only just begun, and as with any wave, you can sink or swim.

Or you can take the entrepreneurial 3rd option, and surf.

"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it.” ~ Chinese Proverb

03/03/2016

"It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad."

02/03/2016

What one small step you take today could lead to a multi-million dollar chain reaction? That’s what happened to Susan Wojcicki when she was 30 years old: “I had just got out of business school and bought a house. So I needed to get some renters in order to help pay the mortgage...”

So she rented our her garage to two Stanford students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who used it to start up their new company, Google.

Susan remembers the first year, with many “late nights together in the garage eating pizza and M&Ms, where (Larry and Sergey) talked to me about how their technology could change the world."

They finally convinced her to join as Employee No.18 and their first marketing manager, when she was four months pregnant. First job? Relocate them all to a proper office.

Called the “Mom at Google”, Susan was the first in the team to have a baby, and her “family first” philosophy led to Google topping the ‘Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For’ list.

The “family” grew, literally, with Sergey Brin marrying Susan’s sister, Anne, and having two kids. Susan herself had five kids. All while growing the marketing side of Google.

In charge of products, it was Susan who came up with the idea of Adsense, which grew to become 97% of Google’s revenue within the next 10 years. That earned Susan the nickname “The Money.”

She then focused at video, only to find a new start-up, Youtube, was growing much faster than Google video.

While working out what to do to compete, Susan stumbled on a Youtube video of two boys in China lip-syncing to the Backstreet Boys. She recalls “That was the video that made me realize that 'Wow, people all over the world can create content, and they don’t need to be in a studio.”

Instead of trying to compete, Susan convinced Larry and Sergey to buy Youtube, and six months later Google bought Youtube for $1.65 billion.

In February 2014, Susan became the CEO of Youtube, and today she is worth $300 million.

What began with a simple decision to rent out her garage has led Susan on a journey that has included being named No.1 on the Adweek 50 list in 2013, being called “The most important person in advertising” and “The most powerful woman on the Internet” by TIME in 2015.

And for Susan, the journey is still just beginning. As she says, “Google is fascinating, and the book isn't finished. I'm creating, living, building, and writing those chapters.”

Now it’s your turn. If Susan can do it (while raising five kids) you can too.

Take a step forward today.

Any step.

There’s no guarantee it will lead to the same magical journey that Susan has been on.

But there’s no guarantee it won’t, either.