Last night, at an awards gala, Intertech was named #1 in Minnesota Business magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work for.” We won in the mid-sized business category.
Wow. I’m humbled and honored. My thanks to all the folks at Intertech who give their very best every day and make us who we are.
Here’s the full press release on the Intertech website.
Yesterday, we celebrated our 20th year anniversary at Intertech with customers, employees, partners, friends, and family. 100’s attended in-person and live via simulcast. It was a wonderful event.
I give my thanks to all who coordinated, participated, and attended. We wouldn’t be possible without you. I’m humbled by your support and commitment. Thank you.
Onto the final post in this series…
In the previous four posts I have explained the business development philosophy called “Act-Learn-Build” as described by Leonard A. Schlesinger, Charles F. Kiefer and Paul B. Brown called Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Future (Harvard Business Review Press, March 2012). I’ve also described how this approached has worked at Intertech, with both failed and successful new ventures. In this last post of this series, I will share the secret that belies the success.
In a word: “Passion!” Without passion for the venture, there’s not much point in trying. While we have started small in all of the new initiatives I described, there always has been an underlying passion driving the effort. Extending the reach of Intertech’s consulting and training means extending the things that we already care deeply about and deliver on with a high degree of client satisfaction.
In the March 2012 issue of Harvard Business Review, the Just Start authors summarize the Act-Learn-Build approach and include a sidebar titled “Why Desire Matters.” I will conclude today’s post with an excerpt that sums it all up:
“It doesn’t make sense to venture into the unknown unless it’s for something you care about. Desire motivates you to act, enables you to persist, and makes you more creative when confronted with obstacles. That doesn’t mean you must have a big idea or a grand passion, at least not at first. Most entrepreneurs begin with a simple interest in a market, product, or service—an itch they need to scratch—and pursue it because it feels satisfying or because they think it might lead to something that does. “
The article also includes some great advice for people who work inside large corporations and who may feel they have less freedom to try new ideas:
“Very few of work at places like Google, where the business model is open, and pet projects are expected to take up to 20 percent of employees’ time. Consider the goals of your company, your division and your boss, and then figure out whether you can link them to what you care about. If you have just been handed a new company initiative, look for something in it that excites you—even if it’s just the project’s potential to boost your career. If you can’t find that connection, consider stepping aside. While it’s certainly possible to try the “Act-Learn-Build” strategy when desire isn’t present, it won’t be much fun and your chance of success will be significantly compromised.
If you’ve been following this current series of posts based on the new book by Leonard A. Schlesinger, Charles F. Kiefer and Paul B. Brown called Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Future (Harvard Business Review Press, March 2012), you know about the “Act-Learn-Build” approach to getting new initiatives off the ground. And you know it’s an approach that I heartily endorse. Today I want to explain why.
Intertech has grown its business revenue by 34% percent in the past year thanks to three new ventures that all were begun with a modest investment: virtual training, remote consulting and our developer training reseller program.
In the case of virtual training, we started very slowly by spending about $25 thousand to build one room capable of accommodating the technical requirements of providing developer training on a virtual basis. Amazingly, we recouped that initial investment in a matter of months. Since then we have expanded our virtual training facilities dramatically and by the end of last year 40 percent of our public enrollments were virtual.
With remote consulting we were totally shooting in the dark. Specifically, we did not know if customers would be comfortable working with us remotely, particularly in areas where we are considered national leaders (TFS, Azure, iPhone and Android). At the end of the day, heavy marketing to create awareness and leveraging the infrastructure we already use to deliver training allowed us to effectively provide IT consulting services remotely. Is it working? We recently landed a deal with a firm out of South Korea.
What we learned from our initial foray into this area was those customers were completely indifferent to our physical location as long as we consistently deliver as expected. Because this new venture is highly profitable, we continue to invest in technologies to facilitate smooth communication and document sharing.
Our training reseller program is the other “hit” I’d like to tell you about. In this instance, we created a program that allows other training companies (in other markets) to promote our courses and receive a percentage of the sale when their students attend our live instructor-led courses.
This arrangement is a win-win because larger training firms often do not want to invest in creating developer training courses since it represents a relatively small percentage of revenue compared to the rest of their business. They pay nothing to list our courses in their materials and receive revenue if their students choose to attend, all the while providing value to clients by helping to satisfy an important niche training need. Intertech has generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in new business thanks to the reseller program.
Next post: The secret behind these successes.
Trying new stuff is part of the fun of running a business. During the past ten years or so we’ve tried five new business ideas: one was a flat out failure, one is slightly better than a financial wash and three have worked quite well. (That’s a pretty good success rate considering the old baseball adage: you must bat 10 times to get three hits!) And while the wins are the most fun and profitable, I don’t regret the things we tried that didn’t work out either. As my father used to tell me, “If you do nothing, you’ll make no mistakes.”
The failed venture involved licensing a specific software application we developed. Similar to the findings described in the new book Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Future, our new venture was a modest undertaking. It involved only myself and one employee and a limited test with one client. When it didn’t work as planned due to technology limitations, we simply abandoned the effort with very little lost revenue.
Determined to continue exploring new revenue streams, however, we decided to try selling our courseware directly to other training firms. As the authors of Just Start report, successful serial entrepreneurs “use the means at hand” when embarking on a new venture. That was the principle at work in this example from Intertech. Our investment in developing software training courseware is already built into our business model since that is what we use in our existing classroom and virtual training classes.
We also employed another Just Start principle: “stay within your acceptable loss.” To sell our courseware directly we used Yahoo (www.intertechcourseware.com) to create a storefront, which limited our upfront investment.
And we’re also embracing the final Just Start adage to “manage expectations.” While relatively small given our overall sales, we are doing better than just breaking even. Not bad for a venture with little upfront cost or risk!
Next post: Winning big by starting small.
As a follow-up to the previous post on our open house, on May 31, 2012 from 6:30 to 8:30, all friends and family are welcome for some good food, drinks, and fun for the kids.
No need to RSVP, just stop by!