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Week 8 - MBA 6101 - Ascending your Start-up

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We have reached the peak of the mountain but there are still lessons to learn while moving forward. First, remember to celebrate small victories. They give you something to look forward to and make your journey more enjoyable. Second, remember that ascending your start-up is not about the status you gain, the money, or the title. instead, it is about the people you inspire on your journey. Keep in mind that it is not about who gets to the peak first but who gets to peak in good shape. For it, we have trained, prepared, acclimated, etc. We want to achieve a long-lasting goal and it takes time and effort. Continue learning and learn from more experienced people. When you fail, keep in mind that it is just part of your learning process. There is always another peak to scale and any prior knowledge will make you more experienced in the field. Also, never forget all the people who accompanied you on this journey and the ones who made it possible: your satisfied customers. Lastly, stay speci
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Week 8 - MBA 6101 - Surfing the Tsunami

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This week, the lesson is how to keep you motivated and your journey sustainable by continuously and incessantly adapting and adopting. Do not assume that the original process of adapting and adopting is enough. In this fast-changing environment of AI, things can change really quick. So it is a good idea to take an AI class and/or read more books either physically, electronically or the way it works for you. The objective is you become more adept.  Some of the suggested titles by Todd Kelsey are the following: To start, Rise of the Robots, 2nd Machine Age, and/or Machine Platform Crowd are good to understand the importance and the impact of AI. To move forward and become more adept, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Master Algorithm. Some of the information in these books may not be understood first so easily so read them over and over as you take more classes on AI.  Also, consider obtaining education and/or certificates. They can be obtained in traditional classes or online. Course
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Week 8 - MBA 6101 - Guerilla Marketing: Research

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You have seen all these weeks the tactics and tools that we use to implement guerilla marketing. Now, you will work on obtaining crucial information. For example, some of the things you will want to know are: whether you want to market your goods, your services, or both; whether your strategy will feature some sort of price advantage; whether you should focus on your own company or consider the actions of your competitors; know who your competitors are; what motivates your clients to buy; whether my clients have children; the socio-economic status of my clients and how it relates to my product or service; what my clients like the most about my company; etc.  Keep in mind that any piece of information is relevant but not all the information has the same degree of importance. Similarly, no question is irrelevant per se. If knowing certain information, like the sports team of your clients, gives you an advantage, you want to know it. So, you must find out what questions you want to have a
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Week 7 - MBA 6101 - Ascending your Start-up

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It is been a long journey in the process of ascending your start-up. You have achieved a big objective but now you need to go even higher to the next peak. Consider developing a rewarding business culture that drives sustainable growth. To do this, think of how you will do to inspire cultural collaboration. It is important to know that cultural collaboration is not just created. It is the product of a process where you begin with making your people feel comfortable, having those who are underrepresented have a voice, and championing people who are underrepresented.  To strengthen your company, you must know your choices if you face adversity. Make sure you know it takes determination to overcome challenges, prepare and stay the course, encourage your team and celebrate small achievements, and inspire believers and work together. Also, prepare yourself to handle the burden of being the person in lead. You must know it may feel like a lonely position sometimes, so you must find ways to c
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Week 7 - MBA 6101 - Surfing the Tsunami

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Now you may feel comfortable with AI - at least not as confused as at the beginning of this journey. You may feel comfortable in AI waters and, if you practice the recommendations in Kelsey's book: adapt, adopt, and become adept, you will certainly be able to surf the tsunami. As you gain more knowledge, the AI tsunami will seem like regular waves that you can surf easily. But, to make sure you go in the right direction, it is also a good idea to have mentors or know whose steps you should follow. In Kelsey's book, there are six experts that give us more insights. I encourage you to read their comments. You can access the book in the references.  To me, the most significant insight from the comments of the experts come from Geoffrey Hinton, psychologist and computer scientist, who stated that he wanted to learn artificial intelligente because he wanted to gain a deep understanding on how the brain works. The best way to undertand the brain is building one. This is what artifici
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Week 7 - MBA 6101 - Guerilla Marketing: Saving marketing money

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Choosing the most lethal weapon for your campaign is a fundamental part of guerilla marketing (which we reviewed last week,) and saving marketing money too. In guerilla warfare, minimum resources are maximized to cause the greatest impact possible. In guerilla marketing, the impact of our resources is maximized to cause the greatest impact as well. But, do not only think of the impact of your resources spent on marketing as an equation where you would expect that the more money spent, the greater impact, therefore the more revenues. Conversely, in guerilla marketing, we focus on the idea that you do not need to spend more than needed. Once your weapons are selected and you have a powerful marketing campaign, do not change it. Stick with it until it loses its pulling power.  Sometimes you may want to obtain quick results and jump to a more expensive marketing plan that seems to provide results faster. However, you must remember that impatience is a deterrent to good and inexpensive mark
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Week 6 - MBA 6101 - Ascending your Start-up

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So far, we have gone through a lot with developing our start-up. We have set a competitive and strategic plan and have adapted to the voice of our customers. Now, we have to pay close attention to how our process is going and what our metrics tell us. We have to align our strategy with them. A great tool that can help you capture information for your metrics is Google Ads. I have used it for the last two weeks and it showed me not only how often my ads were seen/displayed on Google searches but also how attractive it was in terms of clicks to open my ad and phone calls received. Every company has strengths and weaknesses but not all are powerful. We have to use the superpower that comes from applying your strengths to your weaknesses and leveraging your strength to capture the mindset of your customers. To fully capture the mindset of your customers, you need to find the best way to measure your start-up as a customer-centric company. Note that customer-centricity does not start with y
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