 Here are some amazing random cool stuff that I found on the internet this week - just click and enjoy!
Also I just launched a new NICHE website, check it out http://www.trafficmanagementhq.com/ Feel free to click on the ads and show some LOVE. Thanks for reading! Andrew Everett This week:
If you have enjoyed this week's brief but carefully curated walk through the web, please feel free to share or forward this email. Also I just launched a new NICHE website, check it out http://www.trafficmanagementhq.com/ Feel free to click on the ads and show some LOVE. Still want more ? Project Close Checklist You finally delivered the project and had the go live drinks. The team is now breaking up but there are a few things the project manager needs to do to make sure the project is closed and wrapped up. These are grouped into:
For articles articles on projects, you can read more here.
You may also find some of the tools and templates that I have used to deliver projects for startups here, including the most popular item in the store, a project quote tool that helps you build a fully costed project commercial model. You can find it here. Spread the word Are you enjoying this blog? If so, please forward this email to a friend or colleague and suggest that they sign up here. It is free and they will receive a coupon code to allow a free download from our store + regular updates on tools, templates and interviews to help get it done ! Thanks for reading! Please share this....
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 Things to consider (not advice anyone can rely on but some general thoughts)
Any business transaction has risk, but depends on how much due diligence you put in for the value you get. Further reading https://www.business.gov.au/info/plan-and-start/start-your-business/buy-an-established-business Buy an established business | business.gov.au www.business.gov.au If you plan to buy an existing business, carefully analyse both the advantages and disadvantages, including the history, which is likely to impact the future of the ... https://www.business.gov.au/info/run/advertising-and-online/register-a-website-name Register a website name | business.gov.au www.business.gov.au Your domain name is your website address on the internet and gives you an online identity or brand. Find out how to register a domain name for your business. Happy hunting Regards Andrew  It is Friday 5pm somewhere.....time to log off and enjoy the weekend. In the meantime, enjoy a short but beautifully curated selection of randomness from around the web.
This week
 It is Friday 5pm somewhere.....time to log off and enjoy the weekend. In the meantime, enjoy a short but beautifully curated selection of randomness from around the web.
 It is Friday 5pm somewhere.....time to log off and enjoy the weekend. In the meantime, enjoy a short but beautifully curated selection of randomness from around the web. This week
 It is Friday 5pm somewhere.....time to log off and enjoy the weekend. In the meantime, enjoy a short but beautifully curated selection of randomness from around the web.
This week
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love[1][2] In addition a human being should be able to scope and quote for a new piece of business. This short video focuses on how to scope and quote for a technology or Information Technology project, however the basic concepts are the same for most projects. People who should watch this video....
Enjoy and thanks for watching. Topics Covered in the video
The complete e-guide on how to price a project and roll out quotes is available FREE when you subscribe. You can subscribe here. The project quote tool, which is our most popular product is also available in our store. You can download it here, which you can use over and over again to quote for your projects. Are you enjoying this blog? If so, please forward this to a friend or colleague and suggest that they sign up here. It is free and you will receive a coupon code to allow a free download from our store + regular updates on tools, templates and interviews to help get it done !
Innovation Delivery Checklist A short post on how to deliver innovation. I often get asked how to deliver innovation and end up responding that innovation is not a product, you can not build 10 units of innovation. Instead it is a framework that you set up that allows innovation to flourish and creative ideas to evolve. Setting up that framework can be hard, you need a checklist. Are you enjoying this blog? If so, please forward this to a friend or colleague and suggest that they sign up here. It is free and you will receive a coupon code to allow a free download from our store + regular updates on tools, templates and interviews to help get it done ! Thanks for reading..... Innovation Delivery Checklist Key words
Define Innovation Innovation generally refers to changing or creating more effective processes, products and ideas, and can increase the likelihood of a business succeeding. Businesses that innovate create more efficient work processes and have better productivity and performance. For businesses, this could mean implementing new ideas, creating dynamic products or improving existing services. Innovation can be a catalyst for the growth and success of business, and help you adapt and grow in the marketplace. Being innovative does not mean inventing; innovation can mean changing your business model and adapting to changes in your environment to deliver better products or services. Successful innovation should be an in-built part of your business strategy, where you create a culture of innovation and lead the way in innovative thinking and creative problem solving. Businesses that innovate create more efficient work processes and have better productivity and performance. Innovation is not so much as structuring a process but more about creating enough freedom to see differently, act differently, and aim higher. Delivering the Innovation Process A useful technique can be to breakdown the process into a series of steps so that the process of seeking and implementing new and innovative ideas can be controlled and structured to a certain extent. I have used the acronym DEAL to summarise the innovation delivery checklist process. I have used this process to successfully deliver innovation for a number of technology projects. To see more resources that you can use, check out the resources page, here. DEAL
Step #1- Define With any project it is important to define what you are after. This can be in terms of objective or might be a process improvement. As part of this process it is often useful to benchmark your starting point so that you have data to compare against. I did a project for a client to improve the quote turnaround process. We started with benchmarking the full cycle of the quote process which started with receiving the request from the client, validating and seeking approval of that request, analyzing and preparing the quote, getting the quote approved the internal due diligence process, issuing the quote, responding to customer queries on the quote and finally closing and getting sign off on the quote. We needed to benchmark each of the steps in the process in terms of days to be able to understand and see whether any changes made would improve the process. Define what you are after. Once we had the steps defined and benchmarked we could see where improvements were reducing the turnaround time. Step # 2 Eliminate Overhead and legacy are natural barriers to innovation. Just because something has always been done a particular way does not mean that it cannot be improved or enhanced. To drive innovation you need to remove this legacy thinking and strip back what you are trying to innovate and improve and focus on the core of what you are doing. At a client that I worked with there was a legacy of management reporting in the process by which sales orders were called out. The result was that the poor sales person was required to enter and maintain his forecast in 4 different systems. There was constant pressure to keep the systems in sync, as they were being used and tracked by different back office teams. The overhead meant of course that the sales people were spending more and more of their time updating four different systems rather than working on new leads and closing sales. Step #3 Action Innovation will not magically appear; it needs to be worked on. People and teams tasked with delivering innovation and process improvements need to take action. This can start with a lean canvas method used by many start-ups to paint out how the delivery maps to what the vision and values of the project or business relates to. This forces everyone to review what they are striving for and creates feedback loops. Once the lean canvas is mapped out then a process of iterative testing and validation can be used to enhance the process. The feedback loops, data created and testing ensure that the process improvements keep lining up with what the vision/value/ objective of the project was. Unless the project keeps checking back there is a risk that process improvements may be made but which do not relate to the initial project objective. This is a process of action, test, validate, innovation, win. For example I did a cloud-based project in the early days of SAAS (Software as a service). We started with a prototype offering where customers started with a 2 CPU offering for their virtual machines. The expectation was that almost 80% of customers would like the service and upgrade to the next level and use more computing power. At the end of the 1st month, there had been no upgrades or upsells. However we noticed that most customers were using 90% of their CPU capacity, for most of the month. Using this data we did an email update to the customers offering a free upgrade to a higher number of CPUs as we had noticed their utilization was running so high. The offer was free for a month and then they could choose to downgrade or continue and pay the increased service price. The result was a 100% conversion and upsell at the end of the 2nd month. Step #4 Liberate Finally enough creative thinking time needs to be allocated to allow staff and teams to deliver innovation. Like Atlassian and the Nobel Prize winners this needs to be baked in as a regular activity so that it is continual process and not just a once off. People need to feel that they own the innovation and creativity process. They just need to be given the time to do so. This week I was asked to pull together a summary of a deal that we had won a few weeks back and to share some highlights of the deal with some visiting executives to give them insight into the deal and hopefully allow their teams to learn and profit from our experience.
You may also find some of the tools and templates that I have used to deliver projects for startups here, including the most popular item in the store, a project quote tool that helps you build a fully costed project commercial model. You can find it here. All products are offered with a money back guarantee. Are you enjoying this blog? If so, please forward this to a friend or colleague and suggest that they sign up here. It is free and you will receive a coupon code to allow a free download from our store + regular updates on tools, templates and interviews to help get it done ! Thanks for reading. Andrew Everett Below is the summary of the headings and is useful way to structure a presentation on a deal. Suggested contents
It is Friday 5pm somewhere, time to log off and enjoy the weekend. In the meantime, enjoy a random sample from around the web.... You may also find some of the tools and templates that I have used to deliver projects for startups here, including the most popular item in the store, a project quote tool that helps you build a fully costed project commercial model. You can find it here. All products are offered with a money back guarantee. You can also see some of the resources that we use and recommend here. Are you enjoying this blog? If so, please forward this to a friend or colleague and suggest that they sign up here. It is free and you will receive a coupon code to allow a free download from our store + regular updates on tools, templates and interviews to help get it done ! Thanks for reading. Andrew Everett This week…...
Enjoy 
****Stop Press**** This has been the most popular blog post I have ever done. Thank you !! The checklist of 120 items have been added to a simple and easy to use tool that any project manager or delivery manager can use to check on the health of their project at any stage of the project lifecycle. Simple to use and very very effective.....make you look like a boss ! You can get it here for the price of a cup of coffee. The following is a project checklist, which can be used by project managers, program managers, delivery managers, pre sales consultants and anyone who is focused on ensuring that all areas of a project are being managed to ensure successful delivery. It is organised around the lifecycle of a project from initiation through delivery and close out. It is part of a series of longer articles on projects. You can read the others in the series here and here.  It is Friday 5pm somewhere, time to log off and enjoy the weekend. In the meantime, enjoy a random sample from around the web.... The following is focused on resources for startups. You may also find some of the tools and templates that I have used to deliver projects for startups here, including the most popular item in the store, a project quote tool that helps you build a fully costed project commercial model. You can find it here. All products are offered with a money back guarantee. Are you enjoying this blog? If so, please forward this to a friend or colleague and suggest that they sign up here. It is free and you will receive a coupon code to allow a free download from our store + regular updates on tools, templates and interviews to help get it done ! Thanks for reading. Andrew Everett This week….start up resources
 Friday Five
It is Friday 5pm somewhere, time to log off and enjoy the weekend. In the meantime, enjoy a random sample from around the web....
Enjoy the weekend Thanks for reading Regards Andrew Everett Startup Valuations equates to what someone is willing to pay.
The biggest determinant of your startup’s value are the market forces of the industry & sector in which it plays, which include the balance (or imbalance) between demand and supply of money, the most recent capital raising and the size of recent exits, the willingness for an investor to pay a premium to get into a deal, and the level of need of the entrepreneur looking for money. Startup Valuations are dependent on: 1. The size of the opportunity — as measured by the market growth rate 2. The team — members’ domain expertise, track record, reputation, and history of prior success 3. Traction — this might be measured in users, revenues, downloads, or by some other yardstick 4. Your capital needs — how much you plan to spend, on what assets, for what expected impact 5. Option pool — the key determinant is size. The larger the option pool the lower your valuation 6. Preferred stock participation preference 7. How hot the space is at any given moment aka market sentiment 8. Comparable based on recent financings/exits 9. Revenue earned to date. Source: Foresight Valuation Group Why does Startup Valuation matter? Valuation matters to entrepreneurs because it determines the share of the company they have to give away to an investor in exchange for money. At the early stage the value of the company is close to zero, but the valuation has to be a lot higher than that. Why? Let’s say you are looking for a seed investment of around $100, 000 in exchange for about 10% of your company. Your pre-money valuation will be $ 1 million. This however, does not mean that your company is worth $1 million now. You probably could not sell it for that amount. Valuation at the early stages is a lot about the growth potential, as opposed to the present value. How to Determine Valuation? The valuation of your business can increase at every equity raise the enterprise value is calculated by the investment amount and the equity a business issues during each round. For example, if you take an equity deal that surrenders 25% equity in a company during a capital raising, then the cash investment would increase the value of the business (and thus shares) to four times (4X) such an investment amount. A diligent structure can allow subsequent rounds to be raised at a higher valuation increasing Enterprise Value. Early-stage valuation is commonly described as “an art rather than a science”. Let’s see what factors influence valuation. 1. Traction: Out of all things that you could possibly show an investor, traction is the number one thing that will convince them. The point of a company’s existence is to get users, and if the investor sees users. 2. Reputation: There is the kind of reputation that would warrant a high valuation no matter what his next idea is. Entrepreneurs with prior exits in general also tend to get higher valuations. But some people received funding without traction and without significant prior success. 3. Revenues: Revenues are more important for the B-to-B startups than consumer startups. Revenues make the company easier to value. 4. Distribution Channel: Even though your product might be in very early stages, you might already have a distribution channel for it. You might have run a Facebook page of cake photos with 12 million likes, now that page might become a distribution channel for your baked products. 5. Hotness of industry: Investors travel in packs. If something is hot, they may pay a premium. Valuation Methods Some of the valuation methods are · The DCF (Discounted Cash Flow): DCF analysis is a method of valuing a project, company, or asset using the concepts of the time value of money. · The First Chicago method: The First Chicago Method or Venture Capital Method is a context specific business valuation approach used by venture capital and private equity investors that combines elements of both a multiples-based valuation and a discounted cash flow (DCF) valuation approach · Market & Transaction Comparables: Comparable transactions consider the past sales of similar companies as well as the market value of publicly traded firms that have an equivalent business model to the company being valued. · Asset-Based Valuations such as the Book Value or the Liquidation value It is also useful to have several valuation methodologies in your tool box to provide a rational basis for determining reasonable pricing. There are no scientific methodologies for establishing a valuation for early stage ventures. Better practice dictates that we use multiple methods for estimating the valuation for investment purposes, then based on those results chose a final pre-money valuation (by averaging multiple methods, perhaps after eliminating outliers). Ten Top Techniques for Startup Valuation Pitch Kit template ideas
A client asked recently asked for some help with preparing a pitch kit for start ups presenting to the VC they were running. Although this is not a full pitch kit it does give some examples of headings contents and flow of information that should be useful. Also it is important that the presentation is rehearsed and run through several times to get a feel for the flow. Most VCs are looking for start ups that have identified a business problem, found a solution and have an implementation plan that maps the the technology resources and investment required to address the problem and customer need and hopefully make money. Passion and intensity are important but a well planned and executed presentation is also important as it builds confidence in the team seeking investment funds. Good luck !! Want a quick introduction to the Sydney start up scene ?
It is a thriving ecosystem of budding entrepreneurs who are passionate about building great apps and businesses. Andrew Everett went along to a talk from Riley Batchelor, General Manager of General Assembly, Australia. https://generalassemb.ly/sydney Key takeaways: 1) Ecosystem of start ups is evolving, and building to the required critical mass to sustain and nurture start ups. In the ecosystem there are
but there is a need for more....
2) Investors, there are now a number of dedicated and focused investors in the start up community including
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