bendtheblock

Then I wondered about using this as a framework for searching out new startup opportunities (see my comment below).

I also wondered if anyone else had already developed cohesive taxonomy like this.

I wonder if you could look for startup opportunities by taking the taxonomy and mapping it to various verticals and countries. When you find a gap with no existing startup, you'd examine if there's a good reason why there's a gap, and if you don't find one you build an MVP for it.

I've seen them remove unprofitable routes, but even then I can't figure it out, since running a fleet of buses must be a fairly costly operation.

Email me (see profile) or fill out the form for an invite.

It specifically sets out to help people in your situation, because we went through it ourselves.

It's a good point though, maybe it should have a Please enjoy alcohol responsibly disclaimer. Consider it done.

http://www.keepcup.com.au/

Say who you are: "Hi I'm [name] calling from [company], we're a web agency nearby that specialize in X."

Note you may have to repeat this step more than once as you will most likely get through to a secretary. If this is a totally cold call (you've not spoken to the person before, you don't know their name) you should make it sound confident and like there shouldn't be any reason not to put you through to how it is you need to speak to. If you don't know who you need to speak to, ask for a generic title, don't be afraid of asking too high (e.g. "can I speak to your CTO?")

Hook: "I've just been looking at your site / I spoke with someone last week / We met at a trade fair / I know X, who apparently is an ex-colleague of yours / We've just done a website for [a key competitor of theirs] and wondered if we could do something for you."

Reason statement: Why should they be interested? "We have a new web design service we've aimed specifically at X"

Key questions: If they sound interested, figure out how important this could be to them. "How do you update your website currently? / How much is X costing you? Have you considered integrating your website with X?"

The above would be easier if you have a specific product, but if - like us - you're a service-based agency, you'll have to play it by ear a bit, or maybe create specific products for industry niches. I'm not a natural salesperson at all, but one of the first things we did when we started our company was to invest in a training day from an extremely good salesperson in our network. It's paid for itself many times over.

One of the hardest things is to keep motivation when you have a list of phone numbers in front of you. This is a game of numbers, sooner or later you'll call someone who is currently after exactly what you're selling. In order to do maintain enthusiasm, 'visualise success', such as what the potential new business would do for your company, for you personally and professionally.

Obviously there is a lot more to this. Does anyone else have any other tips?

When we set up our agency, here's what worked:

- Get your own site set up so that you have a web presence and can start to build a brand.

- You need to build your portfolio, so do a bit of work for cheap/free if you have to. You want to do this quickly, if you do a site for free the client will be more willing to go ahead straight away as it requires little decision making. We did a website for a primary school and a couple of photographers we knew to start off with.

- You're probably going to need to have low prices to start with, as smaller businesses are more willing to give a new business a shot, but won't have as much of a budget as bigger companies. Over time you can decide where you want to take the business and start charging more as you build a reputation. Your aim at this point is to build a portfolio, so you can charge more later on.

- Classified ads on Gumtree or whatever the equivalent is in your area. We met two of our biggest clients through classified ads (just be honest, link to your site and try and get across your ethos).

- Reach out to personal network, previous employers etc... they already trust you (hopefully) and may have work that can keep you going.

- Get involved with a co-working space, this has 3 main benefits: 1) regain some of the social element of work, which you may have lost if you previously worked in an office environment. 2) Meet other business owners and freelancers that can offer advice and are a good sounding board, and interesting people usually too. 3) You might even get work from other business working at the same space. We've got a couple of clients as a result of using a co-working space.

- Cold calls! I could write a whole post on this, but basically, try and figure out a niche and what your hook is; Why are you going to go after a particular niche? Have you worked in this industry before? Can you offer a service that will add value to them? Are you in their area (geographically)?

Remember this is one of the hardest bits of going it alone but once you gain some momentum and build a portfolio it will get easier.

Great point - I worked for a big company before I had a startup, where they claimed to have a culture of meritocracy. The trouble is that large organisations are too standardized to ever be truly meritocratic. People are generally banded based on perceived ability, but there must be such variation between those in each band, meaning you are rewarding people of varying abilities the same. This type of system is slow and fails to take in to account outliers.

We use an old IBM laptop - with IE, FF, Chrome installed - for our Windows testing.

Failing that, a VM is probably the best alternative.

A peppering of exercise and plenty of sleep also help. I don't believe in all this 'sleep hack' stuff - just get 6 to 8 hours on a regular basis, but that's a whole separate discussion.

Another one is to listen to an episode of Mixergy. The interviews are the ideal compromise between high level strategic questions and the grass roots stuff, such as what were the scaling problems, how was a given process managed, what was the advantage of doing X over Y.

I'll be writing in future about how to 'cook your own MBA' - Mixergy will certainly be a key ingredient.

Good work Andrew.