Everything in life has a beginning and when I say everything; I mean everything. A seed makes a tree, a small one or a big one, but a seed is always needed. The same thing happens with business. There has to be a vision, an idea and if you got the correct vision with the correct strategy and product you will bring your company to the top, like a tree. So, companies and trees are similar. But guess what? They have even more similarities! For a huge tree to grow you need more tan a seed, you need air, water, energy, etc. and a companies cant be made by just one idea, you need people, a location, capital and more things. But once a seed is in the process of becoming a tree with the help of its elements it has a role, to create oxygen, absorb CO2, create glucose and be the home of many other animals. The same happens with a business, it is made to serve someone or something, but remember; your vision needs to be clear. We are skipping a step, a tree has a main trunk and out of that trunk many branches stick out some are thick and some are thin. If we look closely at a company the trunk would be the CEO and the branches would be the CFO, CPO, HR, CMO, etc. I guess this is shocking for you, but a tree and a business are identical!
Now that we are creating a business in the IA (Innovation Academy) we are just in the beginning stages, like a seed that has just been planted. We separated into different branches, I chose the CPO or Chief production officer, this means that we are in charge of the “product” and its flavors. Last week, we decided to start mixing and discovering the best flavors we could find and to do this we needed to follow business rule #1: Always give your customer what he wants. So as any innovator would do, we decided to prototype our product and see if our initial ideas and plans were matching our vision. I have to admit that everyone wanted smoothies at lunch, every student and teacher, they were willing top pay 8 soles per smoothie! This may sound weird, but we didn’t sell any smoothie, we just gave them free which is not necessarily the best thing you can do because you don’t know if your product is quality; at the end, if someone gives you a free drink you will accept it. We at least got a tone of feedback, we realized that the mango-strawberries and the orange-banana-strawberries where the best! So, our small seed was starting to grow, we were still not looking like a tree but we were on the right track.
Now that we are creating a business in the IA (Innovation Academy) we are just in the beginning stages, like a seed that has just been planted. We separated into different branches, I chose the CPO or Chief production officer, this means that we are in charge of the “product” and its flavors. Last week, we decided to start mixing and discovering the best flavors we could find and to do this we needed to follow business rule #1: Always give your customer what he wants. So as any innovator would do, we decided to prototype our product and see if our initial ideas and plans were matching our vision. I have to admit that everyone wanted smoothies at lunch, every student and teacher, they were willing top pay 8 soles per smoothie! This may sound weird, but we didn’t sell any smoothie, we just gave them free which is not necessarily the best thing you can do because you don’t know if your product is quality; at the end, if someone gives you a free drink you will accept it. We at least got a tone of feedback, we realized that the mango-strawberries and the orange-banana-strawberries where the best! So, our small seed was starting to grow, we were still not looking like a tree but we were on the right track.