The mobile app Sarahah has taken the world by storm. It has gone viral within a few weeks, and has exposed users to all tenets of human emotions. Its success has provided some useful business insights to entrepreneurs. The first lesson being that human emotion needs to be leveraged to enable any idea go viral over the internet. Secondly, word of mouth is the best digital marketing strategy. A major reason for Sarahah’s quick success has been its easy-to-use interface. Anything that needs to be successful has to be simple to use. Sarahah wasn’t designed for use only by tech gooks or the highly proactive, and hence its success.

Source:https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-entrepreneurs-should-learn-from-success-sarahacom-dilnawaz-khan

Uploaded Date:15 November 2017

The co-founder of shoes and apparel giant Nike- Philip Knight-  being an alumnus of the Stanford University, was interviewed by the present Dean at a recent alumni-meet in Portland, Oregon. Knight had done his MBA from Stanford and spoke about how the university degree shaped his life. Unlike college dropouts like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, Knight wrote out his first business plan at Stanford itself. In his initial days as an entrepreneur, Nike ran into a lot of trouble especially from the government. The company fought out a heavy legal battle and ended up reforming key archaic laws. Technology will have major effects in the coming years especially in terms of talent recruitment as a lot of tasks today can be performed well by robots. At present only about a tenth of Nike’s total footwear is produced using completely automated tools, but the figure is set to rise over the next decade fuelling fears of impending jobs losses. Nike has also associated itself with major charity campaigns such as Girl Power for helping with young girls’ empowerment in developing countries.

Source:https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/philip-knight-entrepreneur-every-day-crisis?utm_source=TWITTER&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Insights&Date=20171009&linkId=43299182

Uploaded Date:27 October 2017

The business world has been modified immensely in recent years thanks to disruptive technologies such as Big Data, Machine Learning, crowdsourcing, multisided platforms and the Internet-of-Things (IoT). What has not changed however is the need for sound corporate strategy for effective decision-making. There exist a number of self-help theories on strategy for entrepreneurs such as jobs-to-be-done, business model canvases, industry forces, disruptive business models and the most sophisticated approach of blue oceans. In today’s business environment, the need is for fitting in to complex, dynamic and demanding situations. While designing any business, the entrepreneurs need to ask themselves about the firm’s inherent value creation which includes the customer scope and its value proposition. Then the operating model must focus on the value delivery while for the sake of uniqueness, one needs to pursue the value capture. One needs to understand the customer base being served, the key offering, mode of delivery and finally why the model won’t be copied. A good way to introspect is comparing with LinkedIn’s model as it ticks all the boxes of a modern business, yet is able to maintain its strategy leadership.

Source:https://hbr.org/2017/10/a-short-guide-to-strategy-for-entrepreneurs

Uploaded Date: 21 October 2017

A recent study has found out that more than merely the personality of the entrepreneur in question, the success or not of any organization is largely much more democratic. It depends on the entire force as well as something unseen – destiny. All entrepreneurs, indeed all people generally hold a default position, to step beyond the controllable factors is entrepreneurship of a type. Among entrepreneurs, there are explorers, drivers and analysts. Mark Zuckerberg may be defined as an explorer as he set in motion an innovation which got perfected over time. An analytical person may face the crunch of overdoing the analysis and perhaps looking at each individual simply as a number. There are crusaders who are extremely passionate about the corporate strategy they develop. However, this excess passion can lead to an unscientific manner of talent recruitment, retention and development. Steve Jobs is an example of a driver as he was not just a visionary but an executioner of his ideas. Such types never see themselves as entrepreneurs but as part of a whole. Another type are the captains. They like to lead teams by speaking as oneself being part of the team rather than as a figurehead. They are often known to be indecisive.

Source:https://hbr.org/ideacast/2017/06/which-type-of-entrepreneur-are-you?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29

Uploaded Date:10 July 2017