Anton Kimfors
Welcome to my blog, where I share my work, thoughts, and projects.
Practice vs. Average
I’ve never stayed average at things I practice more than average.
What’s Tracked Is Improved
Start weighing yourself every morning, and you’ll soon find yourself taking actions to improve your weight, whether you aim to lose or gain.
Start reviewing your company’s cash flow every day, and you’ll soon see improvements in your business model and a reduction in spending.
Fantastic.
Just make sure to track what actually matters and be aware of the indirect effects.
If you want to lose weight, constant worrying about calories might help you shed pounds, but it could also impact your social life.
If you start reducing spending in your company, employees might become demotivated and leave for better pay and benefits elsewhere.
Enjoy the process.
The Illusion of Business Perfection
In the business landscape, companies often portray themselves in the best light, highlighting successes and milestones while conveniently omitting the challenges and setbacks. This tendency to showcase only the positive aspects is understandable, as businesses aim to attract customers, investors, and retain top talent. However, this selective display will lead to misconceptions and unrealistic expectations.
The danger of this one-sided portrayal becomes evident when considering the rise of “guru” culture in business education. Many aspiring entrepreneurs and professionals are drawn to courses and programs promising success and wealth, often led by individuals claiming to generate staggering amounts of money. Unfortunately, without transparency, people are being scammed by “experts”, misleading and lying to their customers.
This is where the idea of balanced transparency becomes crucial. If businesses had to be more open about, at least, their financial numbers, it would lead to a more informed and efficient society. Customers, employees, and investors would make better decisions, grounded in reality rather than in a facade of unattainable success.
Sweden’s approach to business information is a model of such transparency. In Sweden, details like sales figures, profit margins, and employee numbers are publicly accessible for all companies, including small private firms. This level of openness ensures a transparent business environment, encouraging fair practices and informed decision-making. It illustrates how transparency, when executed with care, can enhance societal efficiency and promote a healthier business ecosystem.
Everyone would benefit long-term, besides the scammers.
The Politicians of Business
A lot of people I meet are quick to complain about politicians using simplified ideas and generalizing too much. Yet, the same individuals fall for the exact type of ideas and strategies when it comes to business.
It turns out that business “gurus” and politicians are birds of a feather, employing the same strategies to communicate their messages. They boil down complex ideas into easily digestible pieces, then brand these proposals with catchy names.
As late as yesterday, I came across the ‘$5 rule,’ a pay-per-click advertising strategy propagated by a well-known marketing “guru”. The rule suggests that if a keyword doesn’t lead to a sale after spending $5, you should discard the keyword. It’s simple, it’s catchy, but it’s dangerously misleading. This rule, though straightforward, ignores key factors such as pricing, clicks, conversion rates, and bids.
The $5 rule’s simplicity and memorable name make it an easy trap for many.
So perhaps you should approach these simplified business strategies with the same critical eye you would use when evaluating political messages and ideas.
No Time Left, Until You Have
Why is it that you always think you have no time left until shit hits the fan and you suddenly have to solve a disaster?
Maybe you suddenly can create more time? Just like the stories you hear about parents whose kids are in danger, being able to create such a strength that they can lift up a car.
Or maybe. Just maybe. You unconsciously reprioritize and stop wasting time on not-so-important things.
Be careful with your time. It is limited.
Too early to use that “hammer”
Even if you have a great hammer, it doesn’t mean you have a purpose to use it.
Startups might have great technology, but if the timing isn’t right, then you shouldn’t try to sell that tech to clients. However, if your hypothesis is that this technology will be very valuable in the future, you might not want to throw it away. So what should you do?
This is one alternative:
- Define the customers for your technology and look at what problems they have currently.
- Solve it.
- Charge for it.
Trust is a luxury and a need
You trust all the time. You trust yourself, you trust your friends, family, coworkers, and you even trust strangers.
Since you trust, you will get hurt and disappointed. Your friend will forget about your meetup, your coworkers will forget about a task they promised to do, strangers will skip the line, and your partner might even be unfaithful.
But what is the alternative? There is no alternative.
You have to trust people around you, and still, knowing that you sometimes will be disappointed and hurt.
That is what’s making it so beautiful and that is why you should feel pride in trusting.
Are all parties onboard?
Whenever you are hunting for a goal, it is easy to forget what key persons and parties are involved and who will be affected.
This happens when it comes to family, sports, school, enterprises, and even startups.
If you in your startup are hunting for your first big client and reach a potential deal quickly, you might be eager to sign the contract. However, your CTO might not be as eager since that person might be more interested in the research which there will be no time for anymore. Or maybe a co-founder now has to take the decision to work on this full-time earlier than she thought.
These sorts of decisions could risk losing a key person or actor. Or, even worse, having a team member who pushes in opposite direction. Startups are hard enough without an internal antagonist.
Every person doesn’t have to onboard. But if any of the key persons are not onboard, you should be aware of it and understand why and what effects it might have.
If you are a startup, don’t write long contracts
When I started my agency business, I didn’t know how to succeed. I didn’t know what sort of clients I wanted, and I didn’t know how to structure the deals. I didn’t even know what I wanted to sell.
I made a lot of trial and error. But when I finally, by chance, found what was working, it took me a long time to focus all my efforts on that.
Why? Because I had a lot of long contracts. Before, I wanted long contracts to protect my business, but now I wanted all of those contracts to end. It did cost me energy, time, and money to keep these contracts, but I couldn’t do much. Long contracts keep you from pursuing new opportunities.
I will never again write a long contract until I know that what the business should focus on is what I agree on. Maybe not even then.
Why did Apple succeed?
Why did Apple succeed?
If you ask a marketer, you will get the answer “Because of Steve Jobs’s marketing skills.”
If you ask an engineer, you will get the answer “Because of Steve Wozniak’s engineering skills.”
If you talk with a lawyer, you will probably get the answer “Because Apple succeeded in building a strong brand and products which they managed to protect with trademarks and patents.”
Every professional think that their field is what’s important. That is both a blessing and a curse.
But it is important to be aware of it.
The “No-feature” – a feature to be proud of
When looking at the competition, it is easy to see all their features and say, “We need to implement that as well,” especially when they come out with a new cool feature.
The same thing goes for internal findings. If an engineer at your company comes up with a new cool feature to implement, it is hard to say no. And it is even more challenging if the feature is based on a recent hot technology or a way of thinking.
As you probably know by now, more features are not often the right way to go.
So I would suggest that instead of just saying no to a feature or implementing it, add it as a “no-feature.” Make a list of features you proudly haven’t implemented. The reason may wary, some might be because you need to focus on other things, but most of the features are features you haven’t added because you don’t want to. Features you don’t want to add because they are not making the product better for your target group. These features are real “no-features,” and you should be proud to show them to your customers.
“We don’t offer X, Y, and Z, but we offer THIS”
Don’t look at the numbers, look in your customers eyes
When looking at a business opportunity it is easy to say “We can offer this to everyone”. Why? Because that would of course increase the imagined market value. A problem though… that number is imagined. The whole market will not want your product, probably never but especially not now. If you look into someone’s eyes and say’s “This is for everyone, but no one has it yet. Do you want it?”, what do you think they will answer?
So instead of focusing on that number, focus on whose eyes you can look into and say “This is for you”. Who can you tell that do, that would lead to excitement and an exchange of value? That’s your target market, not everyone.
The impossible task
When given a new task you never tried before you might feel like it is impossible. This is common for coding, learning a new language, or really for any project where you can’t see a clear path moving forward.
The problem is that you often have an image of how you’d have to be, act, or what you have to know to succeed with the project. That image is most often, or always, wrong.
- You don’t have to be Elon Musk to start a successful company.
- You don’t have to be Steve Wozniak (or even an engineer) to code.
- You don’t need to have a talent for languages to learn Spanish.
- You don’t even have to have a degree in economics or biotech to write a successful business plan for a breakthrough patented biotechnology.
Just start and put in the effort, and pretty soon, you will have achieved more success than you ever could have imagined.
How to turn down meetings
Meetings are the most wasteful thing I ever faced in my professional life. People are clearing out time in their schedule, always 30min or 60min no matter the subject, to discuss things that most of the time could be covered in 1-2 emails.
When calling a meeting, you insist that the others are clearing out time to talk with you and each other, and you better have a good reason to decide on other people’s time. After all, you are decreasing everyone’s time to do the work that matters (even yours).
But, how do you then turn down a meeting that you feel is a waste of time?
- Say no.
- Be clear on why you are saying no.
- Give an alternative to communication that you think will be sufficient. For example, email, chat, recorded video, voice message.
- Be polite.
- If a meeting is still needed – ask for the agenda. This will force the person who called the meeting to specify the exact purpose of the meeting.
Innovation vs Invention
Innovation = Invention + Usefulness = Value
Doing everything yourself vs. Hiring – When starting a business
I have started multiple businesses (most of them have failed), and one important thing I learned is the importance of doing things yourself. It is so easy to feel like you have to outsource work or start hiring. As soon as things get a bit tough, you probably will start thinking, “maybe I should outsource this.”
You can, of course, outsource some things, but a lot of things are vital for you (or the co-funding team) to do yourself. It will help you to understand the process and your customers + it will save you a lot of money. This will help you to avoid the two biggest reasons why startups fail:
1. Lack of market need (42% of startups fail because of this).
2. Lack of cash (29% of startups fail because of this).
Doing things yourself will, for sure, help you understand the market need. You are the one making the decisions, so it is crucial that you get the insights from talking to customers, measuring marketing results, etc. Not anyone else. And as a bonus, saving a lot of money by doing things yourself will, for sure, help you avoid the lack of cash problem.
These two failing reasons sum up to 71%. 71%!?!. So by doing things yourself, you will have a much better bet on avoiding the reasons that are causing 71% of all startups to fail. Of course, you might still end up bankrupt or not finding a market fit, but you will for sure have a better shot at succeeding.
But shouldn’t you outsource some things at least?
Even though you could outsource a lot of things, for example, website and logo design, I believe that doing it yourself will help you understand your customers and your marketing. Everything that in any way will be seen or heard by customers is a part of your marketing, so if you can, do it yourself.
And again – you will save a lot of money. $1000 for website design is probably something you could afford, but, often things go wrong, and costs end up being much higher. Since you are in an early stage, you probably will want to change somethings every now and then, and there goes $1000 again.
What I think you can and should outsource (if you have the possibility) is everything else. The things that don’t matter for the customer or your team. For example, paying taxes or web hosting. That’s it.
Advertising vs Marketing
Marketing makes advertising easier.
Advertising doesn’t make marketing easier, often it may make it harder.
Make sure to focus on marketing first and then use advertising (if at all).
Being honest with your intentions
It is easy to think that potential customers don’t trust you if you are selling them products or services. Therefore, you may start to hide the fact that you are selling stuff by giving away things or just not asking for their money.
However, the customers see through this, and they will absolutely not trust businesses that hiding their intentions.
Seeing what customers want
If you always rely on what the customers tell you that they want, you won’t be very innovative. As Henry Ford ones said – “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
There are many ways to think about this, but one strategy that has been effective for me so far is fast and cheap tests. Develop an inexpensive version of the product, or offer a product before you have the capability to scale it, etc. If you are able to test the demand quickly and before investing a lot of money or time, you are winning.
Developing a skillset
Developing a skillset doesn’t allow you to do better work. It will also transform your way of thinking and seeing solutions.
If all you got is a hammer, everything you look at looks like a nail. But if you got a whole toolset, you can choose the best tool for the specific problem.