Kai Rostcheck: The New Rules (and Tools) of Entrepreneurship

We can probably all agree that the world is changing at a dramatic pace, right? In fact, the popular video Did You Know? illustrates exactly how fast the world is transforming. This video is from 2008, so as you might imagine some of the data points have moved already. But overall, it distills the reasons that many entrepreneurs see the new world as simultaneously exhilarating and confusing.

The Rules

As our world evolves, it forces us to alter the way we do business. Things like “Freemium” and SAS (Software as a Service) hardly even existed a few years ago, but now we see entire industries growing around them. Back to our central question then, what are the new rules and tools of entrepreneurship?

I believe that we must begin our journey with a willingness to change along the way. To put this in perspective:

“The amount of new technical information is doubling every two years. For students starting a four-year technical degree this means that half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.”

Source, Did You Know?

Adaptability is one of the hallmarks of new entrepreneurship. Many of the small business owners I consult with, and mentors whom I learn from eventually come to the same conclusion: the business model we envision in the beginning will bear little resemblance to our actual deliverable.

This also means that the New Entrepreneur has to be willing to quit early. Though passionate and dedicated, she is also willing to accept defeat at a stage of limited investment in order to leverage her time and money more successfully in riper pastures. She learns from her mistakes and moves on. Discernment rules, and that’s one of the reasons why I encourage young entrepreneurs, who are highly adaptable, to partner with seasoned mentors who are experienced. We need each other.

The Tools:

So there is the mindset.  Now what about the actual toolkit? I propose that the New Entrepreneur needs to know how to:

• Automate: Use the cloud as an administrator. Leverage tools like sign-up boxes (to grow our lists) auto-responders (to create a ‘hands-free personal touch’) and on-demand printing to remove the ‘grunt work’ from our operations.

• Build a Network: Utilize social technologies to create engaged communities whom we help, and who want to help us in return. It is essential to build the network before you need it, so start early.

• Outsource: Our networks, combined with platforms like crowdSPRING (for designers), eLance (for technicians) and ZenDesk (for customer service) let us find cost-effective and trusted labor solutions.

• Open Source: Tools like Open Office, WordPress and ZohoCRM are absolutely free, plus many of them have robust developer communities so they evolve faster than proprietary single-vendor solutions.

• Be Mobile: Your laptop (or even your smart phone) lets you get (or do) anything you need from anywhere. You don’t need an office (or the overhead that comes with it) when you can work from home, your car or Starbucks. But let’s face it: though you don’t want your business to own you, you do need the flexibility of being connected to it all the time.

• Be Ambidextrous: In addition to being willing to change, we also need to be experimental, all the time. We need to try new products, services, price points, messages, etc. Sometimes we’ll do that under the umbrella of our current company, but when we find a really good idea that needs separate legs, we spin it off into something new. (For more on ambidextrous organizations, you can read my post “The New Entrepreneurs” here).

What do you think?  Do you agree with these rules and tools, and/or do you see other indispensable elements of New Entrepreneurship?

Kai Rostcheck is Founder and Co-Creator of Free Marketing Made Easy, a program which helps small business owners learn Internet Marketing.