Current Guiding Principle

The following statement from Seth Godin's The Bootstrapper's Bible has been the guiding principle for my entrepreneurial ventures so far, after coming across the statement a week ago:

You are going to be running this business a long time. Spend an extra month to figure out what your business model feels like and save yourself some headaches later on.

Accepting the wisdom of this statement, I have chosen to reduce my efforts and time investment in my main business venture - in the Trading & Risk Management Software Best Practices Space, most likely around Murex software - for now, till I can get a clear grasp of how I will make money in the business; not just survive, but thrive in the business once I start.

The same applies to the RunWalkIndia effort as well. If I am not convinced of the various aspects of the business model and its appreciation and acceptance among the folks involved in the effort, I am ready to pull the plug on the April 13th event.

I think it is better to have the first event when there is reasonable confidence and clarity about the business model.

Guy Kawasaki - in The Art of the Start video and book - provides very succinctly, if a bit crudely, the definition of the business model:

To [define a business model] you need to answer two questions:

1. Who has your money in their pockets?
2. How are you going to get it into your pocket?

The business model discussions for RunWalkIndia is still going on in the privacy of email communications. Hoping that the discussion will come to a commonly agreeable decision by Friday 21st March evening IST. That should allow for kicking off the efforts towards the organization of the first event in full earnest.

If the agreement on the business model does not happen by this Friday evening, then it would be most likely that the first event will be postponed from the current date of Sunday 13th April 2008.