Joe Olsen talks about importance of traditional business skills
We're digging through the archives this week to present a video we recorded March 4, 2010 at the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce's Young Professionals Summit at Qwest Center Omaha.
Joe Olsen, CEO of Omaha-based interactive brand experience agency Phenomblue, gave the presentation below in one of the day's breakout sessions. In it, he argues for the importance of traditional business skills in non-traditional business. He also touches on economic development and how the younger generation of entrepreneurs can be relevant to their city's growth. It's definitely an interesting talk and I encourage you to check it out.
Here are Joe's slides from his presentation:
Here's a rough outline of Joe's presentation:
- Most startups lack the traditional business skills they need to survive. Why?
- Learn to sell. Sell a lot of stuff. Hire people. Omaha will care about you.
- Most startups don't think about sales, marketing, finance, product and production
- For Generation X and before, success was profit growth and sustainability
- Startups of our generation, success is a "popularity contest"
- It's hard to go out and fail a bunch of times without ever knowing what it means to win
- How to define success pre-dotcom: Sustainable, seasoned, reliable, smart, diversified
- Success defined today: Innovative, agile, young, savvy, experimental
- Your idea is the soul of the business, but you still need finance, marketing, sales, product people, etc.
- Aha Moment – Startups realize they don't need to move out of Omaha
- Big Business Integration – When the small business starts becoming relevant to other businesses
- Community Building – Get everyone out of the woodwork to meet each other
- Collaborative Advancement – How can people connect to create really big ideas
- Relocation Magnet – People move to Omaha to work for the great companies that exist here
Additionally, we posted the interviews Joe conducted when researching for his presentation: