Strategy for Business : Simple Approach

When people start thinking about running a great company, most of time they just overthink. They start comparing their plan with the existing ones such as Microsoft, Google, Oracle, or others. The more they think about the giants, the more difficult they take a little baby step. They think they need more money to build their business. They think that the tension of competition is high. They think they will not have enough luck in the long run. They think they will end up as a loser, just like the others.

Don't overthink. Don't make it perfect.

The problem of thinking too much is that you will make your vision more vague. Your business is not started yet, but you already made some delusive possibilities. You block your own way to the freedom, to be successful.

When people see you start a very new and rare kind of business, they will say "Gosh, I guarantee you will fail. Nobody wants to buy a bloody pink hat in graduation ceremony". But if you try to mimic the Coca Cola, of Kentucky Fried Chicken, you will hear another sound saying "You're not going to make it. People are loyal to some popular brands". The solution of this case is simple : be dull of hearing. Do what you need to do.

Start it. And start it now.

My coworker has a story. His brother told him that he wanted to start a very successful business, as brilliant as an idea of selling the roasted peanuts (in Indonesia, there is an idiom for a product that gets a very high demand = "laris manis seperti kacang goreng" = in high demand just like roasted peanuts). "So, what do you sell?" my co-worker asked. "Damn sure, roasted peanuts!!" Don't think such a complicated solution. There should be a quick fix to get the problem solved.

Another clownish story, still by the same person. He made an online store with "acrylic" as the part key of the domain name. Unfortunately, we stumbled on another domain contains "akrilik" (note the letter "i"), the more familiar word in Indonesia. We, as people who sit more than 10-hours sucking screen and write software codes, then "whois" that domain so we can grasp the owner's name. From the whois information, we were riffing through another dull outmoded archaic online shops he owned.

Then, we came to a conclusion that the person is not so tech savvy. But heck, the online shops are running. He sells! Look, we spent most of our entire lives learning HTML / CSS / JavaScript / PHP, you named it.. Yet we still have one and only online shop powered by the most convincing e-commerce framework, but with big header says "UNDER CONSTRUCTION"?

The moral of the story is that you should start with the "Simple Approach".

What is "Simple Approach" and how come this can be a powerful strategy for our business?

The "Simple Approach" just some phrase that stumbled and crossed my mind, but you probably found it easily elsewhere. The approach believes that every single problem should be solved using the very least and minimum effort. 

Every single problem should be solved using the very least and minimum effort

In practice, we just don't give much sweat to a business challenge, and we should act like we know nothing. We should be dumb and oafish. We should forget that we hold some titles from BSc, MBA, PhD, whatever. We should forget what the text-book said. We should ask ourselves these kind of simple questions :

"How do I fix this broken roof, if I'm not getting a bachelor degree of engineering from Oxford University?"
"He doesn't even go to school. How come he could own more than 100 companies?"
"I spent 4 years studying and reading billions of reference of car machines. A trashman comes with a hammer, knock some part of my hood, and fvck... It's just fixed"

Wanna sell your cookies? Start bake it. Don't worry if it tastes like a shit. Sell it anyway.