Doing Business the Silicon Valley way

Silicon Valley: is the mythical place where dreams and fortunes are made (and broken) in the tech world. It’s been an amazing confluence of geography, culture, networking and chance that have made it the tech capital of the world, and I think most people would agree they do things a little differently there.

But there’s much the rest of the business world can learn from tech start-ups and tech giants alike that can help a business in any field work smarter and be more competitive.

Think Outside the Box, or Better Still, Ignore the Box Entirely

Every year, new ideas come out of Silicon Valley that turn an industry on its ear — think Uber, AirBnB or Netflix. More traditional business sectors can learn a lot from this kind of total 180 degree innovation. Many times, tech companies don’t just try to improve on an existing product category, they go back to the source problem or question and ask themselves, “If there were no solution for this, how would I solve it today?” Innovation is the difference between the company that stagnates and slowly dies and the one that is propelled into new levels of profitability and relevance.

Clearly we’re not going to see investment bankers wearing shorts and ironic tee-shirts to the office any time soon, or sand volleyball games over the lunch hour at prestigious law firms. Nevertheless, there are concepts and innovations from Silicon Valley that even the most traditional businesses can adopt.

MVP

It doesn’t stand for “most valuable player,” but rather Minimum Viable Product. This is the idea that rather than starting with a complicated new product or idea, a company will figure out what is the minimum they can create that will be viable, in other words, that will generate sales. This is an excellent strategy for getting something to market quickly, generating cash flow, and getting feedback from real users. This leads us to another lesson, iteration.

Iterating

Think “Product 2.0;” tech companies are well known for iterating and improving on their products as they go. Something initially released as an MVP will go through multiple iterations adding new features and removing ones that don’t work or aren’t needed. In the tech world, this goes for everything from apps to smartphones, but it’s a concept that can — and should — be applied to many other business sectors. Don’t stop at the first version just because it works; keep iterating and improving on any idea.

Consistency in Life: Vision in One Sentence

When we are all starting in life, we think we are destined for glory and prosperity. By the time we are probably 14 or 16 we have planned our life. We usually have an ideal age limit for certain things to have happened: Take an example of a young man who plans that by the time they are 23 they should have completed their undergraduate studies, start working at 24, marry at 26, Have two kids in their first 5 years of marriage, buy a car by 31 and a house by 35, retire at 45, make investments worth $1 million by 55. Surely this is common in life. Nothing is wrong with this. I don’t doubt it even for a second its wrong. We even have secret lists of must do in life before we die.

The Rhythm and Routines in Life

However, when we start off in life we realize that life is not as we thought we were destined. Patterns of life are as not easy to come by. Crises start immediately when we come to terms with reality in the ground. We soon realize life is a matter of fate. By the time we are in our mid-thirties, life has hit us so hard that we feel there is no more for us. We just swing in the rhythm and routines in life that we forget we had planned out how our life should be. We think life has been unfair to us and too often we find ourselves trapped in self-condemnation and complacency.

This is because fear has eaten up our confidence and courage to pursue our own agendas. Instead we chase after the whole world because we’ve had our priorities all mixed up from the beginning. We run after what is not most important in the name of putting food on the table. And so any job is good for us even if it’s totally different from our training and talent provided we get a salary end month. Any business is important so long as we’ve profits to take care of our family. And interacting with anyone is as good if they ‘help us’ go through life.

In One Sentence

This goes on throughout life until some who are lucky enough realize at deathbed that we have not lived. We lived someone else life. All we did was move along with the currents and the waves. However, these regrets could have been avoided early in life, if we had painful introspection that would implant restlessness in us that would last for years. This is the challenge that may seem simple at first but that which can last our life time and compel us to put all the more our effort to pursue it. and this go to our room and write down—in one sentence—the single most important thing I am going to do with the rest of my life.  And one more thing—it had to bring glory to God.

This one thing will liberate you to think of yourself in terms of an individual – not as part of a group, family or a team. This make you begin thinking of doing your “personal best” for that one purpose for the rest of your life no matter the storms you will face. This personal and godly vision will always bring you back to the path when you diverge. When you inspect your progress each day, it will broadly shout you down in shame when your living does not fit in the description of that one sentence when you are honest with yourself.

Personal Agenda in Life

With this personal agenda in life, you will have the boldness to pursue and let go of the pride and the fear of clinging on to our comfort places and people. What adds no value to our life and our vision; we will have fewer problems blowing it away. And when you have a clear vision, people will invest on it. People will want to be part of it and what God will do through you. They will willingly invest their time, skills, emotions and money in it.

In this godly vision, we must by faith and hope believe we are overcomers and giants.  What we have received as a vision from God of what we must do in life, we must refuse to let go of it. We need to be diligent in our calling. Courage to pursue it is a virtue we must highly prize. We must be men who refuse to accept impossibilities. The normal boundaries others accept mustn’t exist to us. You will be consistent if you write down your vision down in a single sentence as if a slogan that defines your agenda.

Vision and Lifestyle

When we have no vision, we fail to reach our full potential because we spend our energies in life with what does no matter. We have lifestyles that do not reflect our purpose in life. We simply live to only what we eat, drink, cloth and spend our nights on. We have no bigger picture to realize that life is more to eating, drinking, sleeping, hearing, seeing and feeling. These are the indulgences in life that corrupt our true self and vision. When we think and take them as if it is all that mattered, we fail to see beyond and only live with veiled happiness and joy in life. We live in the sensual experiences and world. While all things and indeed dreams, visions start from the sensual world we must take them further to make them work in the world of reality and possibilities.

Conclusion

And so today it’s my sincere hope that you will find that one thing that you will bet all you have to live for it the rest of your life. That which you would lose friends, family, money and job for and it would bring glory to God. That which will cause you no regrets on your death bed.

Have a reflective life. Remember to stay in touch with me at jeremiahwakamu@gmail.com or join this conversation on Facebook Jeremiaho Wakamu to keep it going. And again referrals though you social media network/connection and word of mouth is the best you can do for this blog.

Precious YOU

I am perfectly delighted to have a post by a guest by One Wanjah Abbie. What an honor to her masterpiece writing. I assure you its authentic and good for posting and your readership. After a period of networking, conversing and evaluating she has passed the test and the reward is her post here. Kudo’s Abbie Wanjah for making it to the family of Join The Dots. All credit goes to her. Here she goes courtesy of Whats Up symbolically of what she has chosen as our reflections for today.

               

Perhaps I should be telling a story here today. About some girl or boy, or man, or woman, or an animal…but I won’t- At least not today. Not that I don’t have a story to inspire my writing but because today I want us to have a talk.

Welcome to this house (blog) I may not have a lot to offer but I have some. My time and thought will do. Meanwhile; I know you are pondering what kind of talk this is. Please don’t be in a hurry today. Wait and Relax, I mean RELAX!!Sit back. Be patient with me. I promise I won’t take much of your precious time.

Today’s reflections are on taking life easy and simple yet being serious, ambitious and visionary. Take a moment out of the craziness of life. For a moment take a deep Breath, relax and stop! Life is that we all want to touch the finish line soonest possible (It’s all human anyway) but wait; there is only one person in your life. And that is only YOU. So whether you take a twenty minute break or not, no one will say they touched your finish line first when you were on the fifteenth minute of your rest.

You are too much valuable and precious to be lost in the daily routines of life. You have one life to live and make most of it. Life is only sweet when you do exactly what you should and leave what cannot be done today for tomorrow. Never think that we are in a race in life to compete. We are not. Instead each of us should do exactly what they purpose in their hearts and only one time. We cannot conquer the whole world so as to chase it all the way. Our purpose for living out in our generation is simply to run our race, finish it and receive the victor’s crown. Wonder why we should then behave as if all that mattered in this life was rules and law of must do this or else… This is not the beauty of life.

Always be your real self every time. Do not pretend you are something else you are. Do not cling on just one thing you will have no possibility of getting if it does not matter too much in your life. Blow it away. Do not shy away from blowing away what’s not yours. If it’s yours it will come back to you. Relinquish your positions in your jobs when you have other offers. Take a pay cut and start your own company and build it from scratch.

When you are not patient and ready to experience joy and tranquility in going through life contented yet ambitious, we lose the taste and true meaning of a happy life. You don’t have to take everything too serious that should not. Strike the balance of must do’s and should do’s.

Play in the rain, laugh in the darkness, shout in the silence, break all the codes, do all the wrong things for only that one right reason. Go out for a moon light walk at night, take a holiday to a far off shore and don’t forget to give a story/joke during a presentation with your bosses/clients. Take a road drive and try a new nice recipe. Give yourself a five minute break while your boss watches, try walking on your four limbs instead of two (you don’t have to be drunk to crawl) take your enemy out for a drink. Just breath, let life flow do it more often, and then thank me later!

This is because you are precious. Your life is the most precious thing you have to change the world. You have to be sober in pursuing your dreams. This is only if you have peace of mind and health. Do not be stressed because you are over stretched in trying to reach for what does not matter in life. The gifted you must not go through life the gloomy way. While you want be excellent, do it with joy. Do not blame people for your temporal failures. Do not take failures too serious that you fail to see future opportunity. Take care till next time you visit here.

This post is courtesy of my friend one Wanjah Abbie of www.wanjahabbie.wordpress.com where it first appeared on his blog with some editing and additions.

Have a reflective life. Remember to stay in touch with me at jeremiahwakamu@gmail.com or join this conversation on Facebook Jeremiaho Wakamu to keep it going. And again referrals though you social media network/connection and word of mouth is the best you can do for this blog

 

Lessons on my Graduation

31^St July 2015 will remain eventful for me. This day marked the culmination of my basic education. Finally, I was able to successfully graduate with an undergraduate Bachelor’s degree in Business Information Technology (BBIT). I rightly said it- My first degree from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT). The moment of my pride was learning I graduated top of my class with a First Class Honors. That’s no mean achievement.

I looked back and was more than amazed by the number of years I have spent in formal years and can only say, ‘THIS FAR  GOD.’ It was finally the end of at least 17 years of formal schooling. That’s the Kenyan system. Spend 1 year in pre-schooling, 8 years in Primary, and 4 years in Secondary school and another 4 years for a degree course in a college or university. That’s the least you can be schooling if you are luck and do not repeat classes and years.

As it is the tradition world all over, graduation ceremonies are hyped. There are major preparations. And as for the Africans, -where I belong, this celebrations will never be any better without inviting family members, friends and well-wishers both near and far. People join in dancing, feasting, praising and thanksgiving after the main ceremony in the university’s graduation square. God is the center of the ceremony and the center of attention is the grandaunt.

That day, I sat in the gathering of invited and uninvited guests listening to heaps and heaps of praises directed to me. I was humbled by the kind words, love and gifts I received from them. Right from the graduation square where the university management led by the Chancellor and Vice chancellor led the ceremony to confer the awards, the mood, talk and people were fantastic. The excitement could be felt in the atmosphere.

At the end of it all, I was thinking, I have the powers to read and to do what it pertains with the degree how do I become of use to the society- Kenya and the world? This is not a simple question to ask. That’s the subject of another day. Today I look back and identify some of the lessons, I’ve learn t over the years that helped me shape my convictions in excellence.

Success is a right to everyone

Success is a right to everyone but it is not a privilege, favor or priority to some. It is not for a selected few whom the nature has chosen in place of others to succeed. Instead the same natural terrain provides a level ground where all can work and succeed. Anyone can succeed if they so desire to.

Nature demands people of excellence

Nature demands that you work and succeed for a reward of success among other things such as a happiness, satisfaction, financial freedom and freedom to choose what you will do. Those privileges that come along with success cannot be enjoyed unless one succeeds. Only successful people join in the service of kings. The privilege of being excellent will make you step in place you may never get to serving, dinning with princes.

God should be the center of our excellence

When people trust in God in their life, they do not see their limits. They are able reach the level set for their perfection by God. God helps them to view things beyond the horizons of their ability and far beyond what they can conceive with their finite minds. It is because there is no impossibility with God. His grace is sufficient even in the hardest times and his promises yes and amen. I have tasted if this and have found it to be true. With God on your side, you will have comfort when things seem not working. You will not be afraid to start something and you will not be worried and anxious when there are people who seem to dislike you all over.

Understand Seasons of beauty in life

God has made everything beautiful in its time. We should thus strive to understand the season of beauty for every event and thing. Without this undisputed truth, we will act foolishly because failure to fathom this crucial time will see us act out of selfish ambition, hopelessly to see results and of course in ignorance. We shouldn’t be over-anxious for quick results which may be too costly for us in the end. Life has no assurance that in a single fraction of a minute anything planted germinates and matures to be fruitful. Some will be instant while others take long but the fact is that they all come to be harvested at the fullness of time.

Faith it till you make it

This is the last truth for today. Indeed my principle has been, creating perceptions around something and make people believe it is happening even when it’s not till it happens.  This is life and most often than not no one will believe you until they see it. They will demand something to see, touch and feel. You may not have it but make them have a perception it exists. You have to faith it that you are the best until you defeat the best in town. I am own a start up JoinTheDots Stationers & Printers which prepares revision materials for Students. No one was interested in our products we had to create perceptions that that they are highly successive even in its first year so that people can buy them. And its slowly paying off.

Those Five may not be all that I have learn t but that is the beginning. They are vital lessons in life as a successful entrepreneur and academician.

Have a reflective life. Remember to stay in touch with me at jeremiahwakamu@gmail.com or join this conversation on Facebook Jeremiaho Wakamu to keep it going. And again referrals though you social media network/connection and word of mouth is the best you can do for this blog.