A recent conversation with an entrepreneur who is scaling an “Asian-Heritage” shoe brand cleared up a lot of what I think is essential for “21st Century Relevant” businesses. These thoughts were synthesized one step further this past weekend for a presentation I gave to a class of Colgate students (Alma mater) who are enrolled in an entrepreneurship course that I co-teach with two alums. Owing to its name “TIA”, the exclusive purpose of the course is to turn thought into action, and our only pre-requisite is that the students be committed to turning one concept they are excited about into reality; this includes for-profits, non-profits, student clubs, art projects, etc. and attracts great ideas and talent from across the campus.

HERE is a link to the presentation covering some of my thoughts, and the class video recording will go up as soon as available.

Boiled down, the three points I am trying to drive home  are that new businesses need to:

• get out of the “shoe business” and out of the obvious industry-space that their product/service lands them in, and to accomplish this need to;
• have a compelling story that people are drawn to
• provide those people (customers, supporters, enthusiasts…) a platform through which they can participate in the business, be directly correlated to its growth, and take pride in their involvement

I hope you find this useful and thought provoking

TIA Deck 02.26.11 (link again)