Yesterday's Post: The "Seven Golden Rules" and a bit about coffee

Just linking around this morning and I ran across the following article by Loic:

"Minding your own business," French entrepreneur Loïc Le Meur offers seven golden rules - for doing nothing.

Thursday January 29, 2004 The Guardian

· You wait for the idea of your life. I know so many people who, before starting a business, wait for the idea that will revolutionise the world. They never do it. We all have business ideas and the difference between an entrepreneur and a "normal" person is that the entrepreneurs execute it.

· You do not look for the empty space surrounding you. Opportunities are everywhere. Did you ever think "this service can be really improved", or "this product is really bad"? This is empty space and an opportunity to create a business. Of course, it is even better if you find not just an improvement to a product or a service but a real innovation that addresses a clearly identified need.

· You believe that all companies have great products and perfect services. Do you think that most things you buy are perfect? How many do you think are really bad? There are so many people and companies that do not care much about quality and still continue selling until a competitor appears.

· You do not share your idea with anybody. So, you've got your simple idea? Probably not. Every time I created companies, I had about five different ideas. Most people protect their business ideas as if they were protecting the most valuable thing they have. I do exactly the opposite, as sharing your ideas can help you better define and test them. Many people will criticise them and enrich them. If everyone tells you the plan is stupid, then what they say may well be true!

· You give up on your idea because someone has already done it. Look at low-cost airlines. Ten years ago, who would have thought that out-of-the-box airlines would appear and take the market share that Ryanair, easyJet or Virgin have? Just measure how innovative you can be, how much faster than your competitors can you go and how much better your product can be.

· You do not execute your idea. Your idea is worth nothing if you do not execute it immediately, faster and better than competition. You should be more scared by not executing fast enough than having the idea right. This is just because from the idea in your mind to the company you will have created, and from the very first products and services you deliver to the mature ones, your idea will have changed tens of times with the feedback you got from your clients.

· You listen to people who tell you that you will fail. Congratulations. You have finally chosen an opportunity and started gathering a team to make it happen. Even though the team is only you, this is just awesome, as you have started doing it rather than thinking about it. Now you will find tens of people, some of them you consider friends, who tell you that you will fail for hundreds of different reasons. Do not listen to them. Listen to your clients, and be obsessed by quality. Your friends just envy you.

I was thinking I would just cut and paste the above into an email to Jay (we have been discussing collaborative projects of late) but I realised that it is necessary to keep repeating, over and over again, this message of ACTION - for the benefit of us all. So, on that note I think Jay and I had better think about how to start sharing some of these ideas we have been volleying back and forth over coffees at Mirage.

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Introducing the Coffee Crew and a teaser from Colin Newell's opinion...

The darkside of the Victoria Cafe scene: There are one or two (maybe three) cafe`s in Victoria whose employees were hired on the basis that their demeanor was deemed far too objectionable for a vocation as stevedore`s or prison guards in maximum security penitentiaries... ..where the choice in furnishing was strictly limited to what they could pick up at the local landfill.. with owners so drunk on the illusion of their own superiority that they are impervious to reason.. That said, drink up!

Hmmmm I wonder what cafes he could be referring to in the above little summary?

If you are a fellow coffee culture sad sack, and currently reside in and around the Victoria area, I think you know that I know that you know...