Monthly Archives: November 2013

11/17/13

How much do you know about entrepreneurship?

This blog refers to Slava Rubin’s blog “Ignore these startup myths”. (http://upstart.bizjournals.com/resources/advice/2012/10/31/slava-rubin-ignore-these-startup-myths.html?page=all)

Before Class 20 Innovation & Entrepreneurship in Comm 101, my understanding of successful entrepreneurs was risk takers who can come up with innovative ideas and find the best time to launch their products or services. However, the lean start-up concept totally changed my thought. The “five myths of startup” written by Slava Rubin, the CEO of Indiegogo which help thousands of entrepreneurs bring their startups successfully, makes the idea of entrepreneurship clearer to me.

1. There is no “right” time to start.

Slava Rubin and his partners started Indigogo during the financial crisis in 2008, the biggest economy decline recently. However, the company “has hosted more than 100,000 funded campaigns and become one of the most popular crowdfunding sites on the web.” Indiegogo’s success shows that there is no right time to start a business as long as when you are passioned about an idea and ready to conduct it.

2. It’s not all about idea.

Idea may be crucial, but the demand of your customers determines whether the idea will be successful or not. So here comes the lean start-up concept. No matter how brilliant your ideas are, the primary focus should always be on collecting customers’ feedbacks. Rather than sticking on detailed business plan based on assumptions, it’s better do experiments with your customers because markets can change more quickly these days.

Sources:

Indiegogo’s Slava Rubin on the Myths of Entrepreneurship (March 11, 2013) Retrieved Nov. 17, 2013 from Entrepreneur.:http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/226048

11/17/13

Social Entreprise in China

This blog refers to Allison Jang’s blog “Promotion social entreprise behind Myanmar’s closed door.” (https://blogs.ubc.ca/allisonjang/2013/11/15/promoting-social-enterprise-behind-myanmars-closed-doors/)

I agree with Allison’s idea that “I like that people from the other side of the world are working to maximize benefits for Myanmar’s people through the promotion of social enterprise, rather than jumping into an untapped market solely to create profit.” However, that somehow makes me think of my hometown China.

Ironically, I’d say that if China had helped Myanmar to re-enter the global market, the chinese government would solely attemped to create profit without considering social and environmental factors in Myanmar, just like what China did to itself after cutting off the country with the outside world for almost 200 years. Although China’s economy have seen dramatic growth during the last 30 years, its problems are also mounting, such as pollution, abusive labor practices. In the other word, China’s businesses activities are almost booming without social enterprise.

“In foreign countries, the charity has developed for hundreds of years and then social enterprise originally came up. In China, we have everything in a few decades.” As explained by Li Fan, the co-founder of the first social entrepreneur membership organization in China, it is really a challenging task to promote social enterprise in China because it’s hard for many Chinese to understand doing good and making money at the same time, especially the older generations. However, it is reasonable to believe that younger generations of China and newcomers to China would do better on promoting social enterprise and hopefully China would become a country that contribute to the world in a more social and environmental friendly way.

 

Sources:

Social entrepreneurship in China: Small but growing Retrieved Nov. 17 2013 from : http://www.flyingblueclubchina.com/inspire/whats-hot/social-entrepreneurship-in-china-small-but-growing

The social enterprise emerges in China  (Spring 2012) Retrieved Nov. 17 2013 from Standford Social Innovation Review: http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/summercamp/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/The-Social-Enterprise-Emerges-in-China.pdf

11/17/13

Marketing: Being just the opposite of want businesses want?

This blog refers to Xuan Zhou’s blog “I s advertising always a good behavior?” (https://blogs.ubc.ca/sophiezhou/), which argues about Junk Food’s ads not being responsible to tell its true information to customers. It reminds me of many other businesses which intend to make profits by making deceptive ads.

Early this year, Coca-cola introduced  a new product line “diet soda” and produced ads touting how easy it is to work off calories by drinking a cup of Coke. As marketers’ point of view, they expect this health campaign help build a good image for the company and get more health-conscious consumers. However, as many researchers indicate that sugar-sweeten beverage contains nothing nutritionally beneficial but often leads to many diseases such as obesity, the company’s health campaign is doomed to failure.

How comes Coca-cola’s marketing be just the opposite as the business want?

While the starting point of Coca-cola is good since consumers are now more health-conscious than ever, the fact that the company cheats its customers by providing untrue information of its products makes it failed.

I agree with Xuan Zhou that for businesses, “being social responsible for the whole society is much more critical than making money.” Negative Controversy brings by deceptive ads is the one thing that businesses would never want. Not only would they risking losing loyal customers, but the diminished trust in business lead political leaders to set policies that undermine businesses’ operation.

It’s good to see that business are more aware of creating social value as an important way to succeed, but deceptive marketing is never a smart way to achieve it.

Sources:

Soft drink makers accused of using “Big Tobacco Playbook” (Aug 19, 2013) Retrieved Nov. 16 2013 from CBCNEWS: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/soft-drink-makers-accused-of-using-big-tobacco-playbook-1.1362598

11/15/13

Why are employees so important?

Google, which is regarded as the best workplace in the world, puts lots of effort on “creating a workplace people never want to leave”. For example, it creates a cozy environment for people to work in by providing many different places within the company such as gyms, micro kitchen. Besides, the company designs spaces with different scales that allows employees to design their own spaces. All these efforts aim at making employees feel more comfortable with their working environment.

Why is it so important for employees to feel good? Here’s what I think.

Good employee’ performance leads to more consumers. As many businesses strive to figure out ways to learn more about their consumers in order to gain more profit, they often forget the fact that it is employees who create the products that customers consume.

Employee is actually the other crowd that businesses should pay equal attention to. Today, however, there are still some companies don’t aware of that, and think that the money they saved from building a good working environment can help maximize their profit.

As employees have more rights than ever today, businesses have to realize that figure out appropriate ways to maximize their human resource such as providing good working environment is a very important thing to do to make the businesses more profitable; and they should.

 

Source:

How To Create  A Workplace People Never Want To Leave By Google’ s Christopher Coleman. (April 11 2013) Retrieved Nov. 15, 2013 from BloomBerg Business week: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-11/how-to-create-a-workplace-people-never-want-to-leave-by-googles-christopher-coleman

11/11/13

Liberation Wrapper: The more you learn about your customers, the more successful you will be

Recently, Freshness Burger, the national hamburger chain in Japan, introduced a sneakily  designed burger wrapper which covers diner’s mouth with a printed “ochobo” mouth (small mouth).  In Japanese culture, “ochobo” is regard as an attractive feature of women. As claimed by Freshness Burger, the sales of its classic large burger to female customers was raised by 213% compared with the previous months due to this change.

The  success of Freshness Burger’s campaign shows how a better understanding of consumers’ behavior would help a business to achieve its success. Before this “Liberation Wrapper”, it might be a traditional view that women tend to eat small burgers due to their low capacity of eating. However, in most East Asian countries where women are relatively conservative, a large open mouth is considered rude and ugly in public so that most women would cover their mouths  when opening them to conduct good manner.

I think that kind of misunderstanding due to stereotype of consumer behaviors exists in many businesses. Businesses are actually losing potential profits because of that. Therefore, when it comes to interpret consumer behaviors, it is very important for businesses to discard stereotypes and have a deeper understanding of the cultural, social and personal factors.

Sources:

New Japanese Face Masks Let You Chow Down on a Burger While Maintaining Your Dignity.  (2013, November 5) Retrieved November 11 2013 from TIME: http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/11/05/new-japanese-face-masks-let-you-chow-down-on-a-burger-while-maintaining-your-dignity/