• Joost: Joost could potentially change the way people watch television. The technology enables the broadcast of TV-quality video over the Internet, and allows people to stream real TV programs from networks like MTV and National Geographic.
• Trivop: Trivop produces videos for hotels through a worldwide network of filmmakers, allowing travelers to virtually visit the hotels online before they book.
• Babelgum: On the outside, Babelgum might seem like another online TV-viewing outfit, like Joost. Unlike Joost, Babelgum isn’t just moving mainstream television to the Internet. Instead, it is also offering niche programming, including independent and short films.
• Stardoll: At Stardoll, users create their own dolls — or choose from the site’s ever-growing collection of celebrities — and dress them in virtual fashions.
• Sky-click: Sky-Click uses Skype to connect businesses with freelance customer service agents, allowing small companies to cobble together a call center without any investment in infrastructure. Each agent costs only $10 per month. More than 7,000 companies have registered to use its services.

Via: Blogtrepreneur

That is how Engadget introduced the story. Very interesting video.

*Feed readers might need to check the website to see the video.

Huge Macleod is the creative mind behind Gaping Void, and he recently published an intriguing article titled “Random Thoughts On Being an Entrepreneur”. The article has 26 points, and below you will find my favorite ones:

7. People buy your product because it helps fill in the narrative gaps in their lives.

9. Some people think that once they secure venture funding, their problems will be over. Wrong. That’s when your problems REALLY begin.

10. It’s better to be underfunded than overfunded.

11. If an average guy in a bar can understand what you do for a living, chances are you’re halfway to becoming a commodity.

14. Smart, young, artistic people are always asking me which is a better career path, “Creativity” or “Money”. I always answer that it doesn’t matter. What matters is “Effective” and/or “Ineffective”.

16. People will always, always be in the market for a story that resonates with them. Your product will either have this quality or it won’t. If your product fails this test, quit your job and go find something else. Just making the product incrementally cheaper or better won’t help you.

18. People remember the quality long after they’ve forgotten the price. Unless you try to rip them off.

24. MBAs are conditioned to use their brains in much the same way as sex workers are conditioned to use their genitals. Nice work if you can get it.

25. Bill Gates may have a million times more money than me, but he isn’t going to live a million times longer than me, watch a million times more sunsets than me, make love to a million times more women than me, drink a million times more fine wines than me, listen to a million times more Beethoven String Quartets than me, nor sire a million times more children than me. Human beings don’t scale.

You can read the complete article here.

Despite those (supposed) qualities, however, some recent studies are starting to show that the practice of using formal business plans as a corner stone of business ventures is not as widely spread as the theory suggests. Caddell mentions, for instance, a recent study that appeared on the Inc Magazine, outlining the following statistics:

• 60% of the Inc 500 CEO’s said that they had no business plan at the start
• of the 40% who did 65% said that the company strayed significantly from the original plan
• only 12% of the Inc 500 CEO’s carried out formal market research before kick starting their company

The study highlights two possible reasons for those statistics. Firstly the amount of change that is taking place in most industries offer little information and no certainties upon which to write a business plan. The second reason is connected with the fact that entrepreneurs usually need to seize opportunities on a millisecond, and there is no time to be wasted on writing extensive documents of doubtful value.

Business plans are still necessary (not for completely logic reasons, yet necessary) but the practice of writing 100 pages books detailing aspects of a certain company or business segment that could not be true the day after will inevitably need to be reviewed.

In my opinion the main message of those findings is that the our economy is not only changing enormously, but the speed of such changes is also accelerating. The consequence is that old business school concepts such as mission statements, business plans, total quality management and the like may no longer be suitable.

You can read the complete Inc Magazine study here.