E&PP Motivation
I was inspired to create my personal training software by the frustrations I had encountered in my many years weightlifting I had wondered for some time whether there was a way to solve some of the problems that I had encountered time and again. I was certain that it wasn’t just me who forgot that new exercise they had read about in a magazine back at home or struggled to remember which weight to use for each particular exercise and how many repetitions they did last week. My brainwave was realizing that these problems could be quite easily solved, the technology exists, but no-one else seemed to have spotted the gap in the market for a specialised application for the weightlifting/bodybuilding market. I am less motivated by dreams of massive sales and instant fame for my product and more excited by the idea of changing people’s lives. I want to empower all those insecure young guys who never get proper tuition and get fed spurious misinformation at every turn. They’ll waste their time and money and the unhappiness resulting from their misdirected efforts leads many to steroid use. If I could make a difference, it’d mean a lot to me.
Another business idea inspired by personal experience was recently awarded Startup Company of the Year 2006. Jennie Johnson had had enough of struggling to find reputable, good quality nurseries She had a clear vision of a better kind of nursery and the her business plan impressed the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme so much that she secured the maximum £250,000 enabling her create the first branch of ‘Kids Allowed’. The nursery was built from scratch to accommodate all her innovative ideas; age specific rooms, a sensory theatre and a restaurant amongst others which required the backing of an equity part partner, a property developer who poured a further 4.5 million into the project. Her business was formed in 2003 but the ‘Kids Allowed’ didn’t open its doors to the public until 2005. A successful marketing strategy including hiring of a design company to produce a promotional DVD and brochure and a PR company to raise the companies profile paid off amazingly well and the nursery was fully booked from day one. Two more branches quickly followed and Jennie Johnson found herself at the head of a company employing 130 staff with an annual turnover of 1.8 million. Looking at the case of ‘Kids Allowed’ in relation to my own work I am interested by the arc of progression from initial concept to securing the money to realise your dream to finally employing outside expertise to manage its emergence into the world. Jennie Johnson had a background in marketing that must’ve helped in that crucial last stage but I imagine other good ideas trip at that last hurdle.
posted by nick_gerrard @ 1:37 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home