Comments on: Business ideas which won’t work

By: hinamanu

hinamanu — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 08:09:02 +0000

any businessmen on tonight

By: hinamanu

hinamanu — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 07:45:34 +0000

anyone can enlighten me on this peak profit point?

By: hinamanu

hinamanu — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 07:08:26 +0000

In fact, if I won a fortune in Lotto, would I be better off living off the interest than investing in business??

By: hinamanu

hinamanu — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 07:06:50 +0000

“[DPF: My biggest worry is that I need to expand the staff from 60 odd to around 130 to cope with all the business we have]”

But what is the real time problem of this scenario as an employer??

GST and PAYE?? your extra contributions to ACC and Kiwi saver??

I’m asking if the extra work isn’t actually profitable which leads to, is their a peak point where business is profitable and sustainable and is that peak point becoming more precarious??

By: Tina

Tina — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 06:20:39 +0000

During a gold rush, it’s usually better to own the general store than dig for gold.

By: goodgod

goodgod — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 05:55:43 +0000

Adam Smith’s post: good advice in plain english.

By: Rex Widerstrom

Rex Widerstrom — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 04:58:26 +0000

Any business started by a person or persons who’s made their money as a solo entrepreneur and whose focus remains on building their own personal wealth as opposed to that of the company (and increasing their own wealth as a result).

In other words, some people are so used to working hard IN a business that when they begin to employ other people they keep working in the business and not ON it. I’ve seen several otherwise brilliant businesses fail because the Director(s) couldn’t lift their sights above the walls.

By: Adam Smith

Adam Smith — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 04:49:02 +0000

I think the list is simplistic, my wife drew my attention to some comments by a futurist made on Australian TV this week, which if his thinking is appropriate took as a thesis that much of the established norm, including in business would largely disappear in relatively short period, this was backed up by a BBC Radio interview I heard overnight, where the interviewee, I forget his name, pointed out that the great majority of us think in a linear fashion, whilst many innovators in fact think exponentially.

On this basis, given that many of the points made above are old world in today’s thinking, it is highly unlikely that many of them will hold good, other than:

* Focus on an objective
* Do not try and do too much for the resources available
* Manage your time carefully
* Whilst listening to others, remember someone has to take a decision
* Be prepared to rescind a decision if it proves wrong and change tack
* Whilst planning is important, remember Von Clauswitz who stated in the context of military thought, but it holds good in other fields, something along the lines of ‘ a strategy is something you take onto the battlefield, but change as circumstances dictate”
* As someone above noted manage risk in all forms, indeed, to some extent much of what Drury is saying is about risk management, as one could say about my comments also

By: David Farrar

David Farrar — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 01:24:58 +0000

I’m afraid I never advertise for staff. I only appoint staff on the recommendations of existing staff members. It keeps the quality significantly up. The one time I advertised was enough.

By: Ross Nixon

Ross Nixon — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:43:00 +0000

DPF, where is your advert for staff?
I have three lazy teenagers at home who could do with part-time jobs.

By: noskire

noskire — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 22:12:56 +0000

Hard to see the cost of Google AdWords rising dramatically, and CPC is dependent on the industry you’re involved in anyway. If anything, many established AdSense publishers have been reporting drops in their Google paychecks, not increases.

And what sites are killing TradeMe infused?

By: infused

infused — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:32:12 +0000

That’s a pretty stupid list. Alot of those can be done easily. My content management system has made me thousands. There are trade me sites killing trademe.

By: ghostwhowalks

ghostwhowalks — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:16:37 +0000

"Any business depending on low-cost Google AdWords as their cost will rise"

Its Ok then if you call it non commercial!!

Id worry about a business that depends on phoning people during their dinner time, has a very low sucess rate at getting a decent response because of this

[DPF: My biggest worry is that I need to expand the staff from 60 odd to around 130 to cope with all the business we have]

By: vto

vto — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:54:00 +0000

a business which does well: that whereby you can simply force money out of peoples wallets by legislation and then enforce it by giving the enforcers more power than the police. Oh, and make sure the ‘CEO’ stands up and claims amazing skills at operating at such eye-watering surplus levels.

Ha, what a joke Cullen.

By: Kiwi Trader

Kiwi Trader — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:49:25 +0000

Any business that does mot understand how to manage risk, be it currency, interest rate, electricity, metals, fuel etc etc.

It still staggers me that we have major companies that “run with the wind”. Sanfords and NZRU being two cases in point. Only complain when the exchange rate is too high. Where was the hedging when it was low?

They simply got it wrong and then its the Reserve Banks /governments fault. Failure to manage risk (that it could go higher!).

By: ghostwhowalks

ghostwhowalks — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:42:36 +0000

Any business where the you hire the CEO from an unrelated field , its his second career and wouldnt know how to run a bath and his idea of product research is sniffing the vegetables

By: vto

vto — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:19:12 +0000

any business where the costs exceed the sales