Last week I did a keynote and workshop with around 25 tech-entrepreneurs at Servoy World in Amsterdam. The core theme: The Future is Bright. Yes it is, but it all obviously all depends what you do with it. So, in order to get a meaningful discussion going I focused my keynote around five basic but critical questions every tech-entrepreneur should ask themselves and score themselves on.
The result struck me: Less than 10% positioned themselves in the top-range (scoring themselves an 8 or higher). This means there’s money left on the table, opportunity, but obviously also threat.
Where do you stand?
Let me start by sharing the five questions:
- What’s your ability to own the big idea in your category
- What’s your ability to attract an audience that’s prepared to pay a premium
- What’s your ability to turn customers into fans
- How difficult will it be for your competitors to match you in delivering your unique value
- What’s your ability to stay relevant in your category
And the assignment was to rate yourself on a scale of 1 – 10.
So, while you are reading this – how do you score, and how does that make you feel?
The workshop and following panel discussion revealed some interesting insights as we worked towards answering the question: What would it take to take your current score from where you are now to a clear ‘10’. What stands in the way? What would have to be true? How do you get started to move the needle?
What if you’d be surrounded by like-minded peers?
What came out were some open doors but also a range of new realizations simply from having the discussion with ‘like-minded peers’ which proved very beneficial. That shows the power of ‘the community’. At the end it’s often lonely at the top and being part of a group of people on a similar journey can be extremely valuable.
One thing that stuck out was the conclusion: “We should challenge ourselves more regularly around these questions. Day-to-day business is typically taking up all our energy, and it’s making us complacent to what’s really important.”
Is this about starting a simple habit?
Revelations like this fire up my desire to do something about this and start a global movement – a movement centered around creating a new habit that reminds us regularly about the change we seek to make – and what it takes to be remarkable in doing so.
So, I am very eager to hear your views on how realistic something like “Remarkable Monday” would be: A weekly 10-minute challenge for everybody in your company to make them reflect what they could do that day to contribute in making your company stand-out in your category.
Let me know your thoughts
Where do you really stand?
And before I forget: The critical questions. The five I mentioned above are just a selection of a larger pack that I’ve developed around the 10 traits of a Remarkable software business. If you want to do a 360 assessment to see where you stand, try out the Remarkable index.