The challenge of finding a niche

When I last met with Caroline before Christmas we discussed how to go about testing a proposition in the market place and discussed the idea of 'soft pitches' - talking to potential customers and testing out the proposition to see what resonated and what didn't. At the end of the conversation we set the challenge of 5 soft pitches to potential customers before we next see each other at the beginning of February. The point of this is to avoid the pitfall of going away and working really hard at a 'fantastic concept', announcing it to the world, and realising that the 'genius idea' in our heads wasn't actually what people wanted to buy. She also told me not to bother with a business plan at this stage but a simple proposition (a paragraph or two) to convey the idea. I have managed to 'pitch' a couple of people in the sector (and a lot outside) and its been really interesting watching people's faces and hearing their instinctive response to what I've been saying. Its fascinating what 'washes over them' and what they say 'I've not heard that before - that's really interesting'...and its often been the small throwaway thought that I didn't think had much merit that they have responded the best too!

Our proposition is steadily evolving - although I wish we could find a way to speed up the process, or that I had a faster brain...but as someone once said "There are no shortcuts for experience" - ain't that the truth.

2009 - some non-resolutions

I don't buy into the effectiveness of New Year's resolutions. However, there are some things that I have started to do in 2008 that I am excited about doing more of in 2009:

- Tune into my instinct more and understand what feels right to me
- Make more decisions and make them more quickly
- Find great people who are great at doing things I am not great at - and then find a way to work with them
- Make time and space to expand my mind and thinking - find ideas and opinions that challenge my world view to help me work out what I believe
- Make sure I step back to see the big picture of what we are creating - I think I can do this by regularly connecting with all those wonderful people who think that we are doing great work and spending time in different environmental spaces
- Remind myself to enjoy the journey
- Change the way I view exercise - rather than a luxury of time that I cannot afford in my empire building, it is a fundamental part of my success. It helps me be more balanced, clearer and energised. That's got to be a good thing for our mission
- Spend time on the things that matter - both professionally and personally. I think my life will become simpler and a lot more fulfilling
- Work out what I love doing and what I am great at and spend my time on this rather than spending time doing things that I don't enjoy not very well
- Be more choosy about what I listen to and tune into - enough of the doom and gloom!

I think if I can continue to develop my faculty in these areas I will have a great year