Comments on: What are the ingredients to launching a company?

By: Vincent van Wylick

Vincent van Wylick — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:35:46 +0000

Thanks everyone for the great feedback! Even though you all came from different angles, it may me think a great deal about the business-process. I’ll be back, as soon as I have some more thoughts about this.

By: Marc Duchesne

Marc Duchesne — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:48:56 +0000

Hello Vince,

First thing first : your diagram, for as complete as it may seem at first sight in regards of the multiple aspects of operating a company, misses the true point : it’s all closed loop.
You can’t start, build up, and run a successful company without setting its structure upon a feedback loop. Each department needs to talk to each department. Everything is heavily tight up. Marketing needs to talk to Production which needs to talk to Sales etc etc etc.

Then, second yet most important parameter : THE CUSTOMER. I don’t see the Customer on your diagram. Read Peter Drucker : a company creates a customer. The company delivers a service (or a product) to the customer, who in returns delivers money to the company. Full stop.

This is your diagram now :

/–service–>\
“COMPANY” “CUSTOMER”
\<–money—/

Then you can setup your structure accordingly : make every single department able to reach the customer, one way or another.

By: ontechnology

ontechnology — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:33:17 +0000

The two ingredients that matter are:

A. A working product
B. People who want to use it

Everything else is subordinate to those. A is about having money and people who can implement it. B is having a good idea and good marketing.

I think your diagram is too complicated.

By: Jeremy Fain

Jeremy Fain — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 20:42:15 +0000

I like the diagram too.
Building a company is indeed like assembling blocks.

However, the idea of jumping from one block to another is largely theoretical: as an entrepreneur, I have to cope at the same time with an unbelievable number of topics.

By: Kari Silvennoinen

Kari Silvennoinen — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 11:23:08 +0000

That diagram is quite simple. In a good sense.

Maybe you’ve got couple of things with too narrow definitions. Instead of “Production” and “Sales & Marketing” I ‘d suggest more general things. The first is in a sense the core of what the company does, and while “Core” might be too consultant-marketing-speak, “Operations” has a nice ring to it. The latter, on the other hand, while Sales and marketing are, among others, support functions for the “core”, but I think highlighting sales and marketing is quite important too, so I don’t know how to group that one.

Also, it’s worth noting that because everything expands from The Idea(tm), this style of diagram could give you better room to extend your thoughts better… maybe. Or maybe I’m just having one of my (rare) creative hang-overs. http://i31.tinypic.com/micftf.png