David Chan » Business

Real Estate – A Timely Business Development Opportunity?

DavidChan — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:49:46 +0000

There’s a lot to be said, both good and bad, about real estate business development. For years the world of real estate business development made many people rich, allowed them to retire sooner rather than later and also helped families fund college educations for their children. Now, with the housing crunch and financial debacle, is business development in the real estate market still a good bet? Depends on which real estate market you choose to develop: OFFLINE or ONLINE.

Allow me to first explain the offline real estate market. By offline real estate market, I mean residential homes, apartment buildings, raw land and commercial office buildings … in other words, the physical world of real estate.

Developing business opportunities in the offline real estate market made a lot of people rich, but it also decimated a generation. If you had the good fortune of “buying low and selling high”, you made out like a bandit. However, like stocks, real estate business development is not for the “un-initiated”, nor is it for anyone who doesn’t do their homework. And, even if you do your homework, there are a lot of bad deals and crooked people out there.

Offline real estate development requires an understanding of demographics, local markets, finance, and much, much more. In addition, it requires plenty of money, especially these days, to finance down payments, mortgages, insurance and taxes. It also requires looking at the big picture. It’s all great and wonderful to think about the upside, but what about the downside? In other words, how can you get burned?

Let’s explore an example. Suppose a crooked real estate agent brings you a deal that just looks tremendous on paper. It only requires an investment of a few thousand or perhaps a few hundred thousand in order to make millions. The developer has a great track record and wants to bring low cost housing to people who need it. In fact, the real estate agent believes so much in the deal that he/she has also invested in the deal.

Keep in mind the old adage that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. There are so many scam artists in the world of offline real estate. And, the biggest problem of all is that the stakes are very high, indeed. You can lose thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or your life savings in offline real estate business development. As a tip, one good tool to check for scam artists, like crooked developers is www.ripoffreport.com.

Contrast OFFLINE real estate business development with ONLINE real estate business development. What is this you ask? It’s the world of building businesses leveraging the Internet.

For example, buying and registering a domain name is analogous to buying a piece of raw land in the physical world. Creating a website, then, is analogous to building a house on that piece of physical land. And, adding content (images, text, video, etc.) on your website is like adorning your physical home with furniture, pictures and such.

How is business development executed in the online real estate market … by creating value for your online property. Let’s take an example. When www.PartyPoker.com first launched, it was merely a website for like minded people to pass the time playing poker. Today, it is the #1 gaming site on the Internet, as tracked by www.Alexa.com.

How did Party Poker become numero uno … through community and social proof. They built the best poker site, invited people, friends of friends and affiliates. How do they make money … through advertising and the cultivation of their subscriber base.

Compared to the cost of offline real estate, acquiring, building and maintaining online real estate is peanuts. Yet, the rewards can outstrip those of offline real estate by a thousand fold, if not more. One real life example is the sale of YouTube to Google for $1.65 Billion in 2006.

There are many more examples of online real estate business development opportunities. The key is to pick a niche, understand your demographics, put down stakes, build your dream site, and invite your flock. Sound familiar?

How to Communicate Effectively

DavidChan — Sat, 09 May 2009 15:18:49 +0000

Communicating effectively is one of the top skills that everyone should learn to master. And, the sooner, the better. While I did not formally study communications, I believe that I communicate well. Effective communications is so important these days because there is so much “noise” in our lives … on the news, over the Internet, and absolutely on our mobile devices. The key to communicating effectively is to assess the situation in which you are in, decide on what you want and figure out how you’re going to get it.

Let’s take an example of workplace dynamics. Clearly, there is a “protocol” for communications and an unspoken power dynamic between two participants. If you manage people, the proper communication method is to use leadership skills to communicate. However, if you are communicating upward, you’ll want to maintain your self-esteem, while recognizing the upward authority. Certainly, strongly voicing your opinion is encouraged; however don’t be offensive.

Many effective communications authorities would recommend that one should be looking for a win / win outcome. In other words, you get what you want by giving something in return. For example, if you’re looking for a raise at work, you could recommend new procedures that could save the company money or help increase company revenues.

There are also effective communication techniques in business development as well. Perhaps, you’re looking to partner with a new company. They have funding and implementation expertise, while your company has unique software intellectual property. In this scenario, effectively communicating how both companies would benefit from working with each other would be the best outcome. For example, a win / win scenario could be that you enlist the implementation company as a sole source provider for their services. In return, the implementation services company could provide much needed marketing and business development funds.

There are many more examples of how effective communications can streamline business discussions, as well as help create mutually beneficial relationships. The key to effective communication techniques is to take the time to do your homework. Make sure you understand what your counterpart is looking for and what motivates him or her. Decide on what you or your organization is trying to achieve, craft a proposal where both parties win and then succinctly communicate that proposal.

The $10 Million Business Development Experiment

DavidChan — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:59:19 +0000

I recently read with great interest the cover story in January’s issue of Inc. magazine. The story is about a young man named Markus Frind out of Vancouver, British Columbia. The story describes how he was able to slay Goliath on the Internet in one of the largest categories of online services: Internet dating. And, he did so by charging zero money, nothing, not a cent.

Markus had formidable competition from the major players: Match.com, eHarmony and Chemistry.com. Not only were they already generating revenue, they had an “army” of employees … in some cases as many as 100 people.

What was so unique about Mr. Frind’s business development model? And, why was he able to get on the front cover of Inc. magazine? The whole online business model has changed radically from the days of big enterprise software companies. And, even from the more recent phenomenon of “Software As A Service” or SaaS.

In the enterprise software days, the model was to charge hefty software license fees, plus training, plus support, plus name your fee. By the time one was done with all of these fees, you’re now into the millions, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then the SaaS model evolved. No more need for expensive software licenses, just pay us a monthly fee and all your troubles go away.

The new business development model has really come full circle to Gillette. Give away the razor to sell the blades … or HP for that matter … give away the printer to get the ink sales. Markus couldn’t figure out why people needed to pay money for a dating service. Why not give the service away for free? And, in so doing, drive significant traffic to his website.

And so he did. His site is so successful that he generates $180,000 a week in advertising sales or $10 million dollars a year. Why are companies so eager to advertise with Mr. Frind? One point six billion visitors every month come to his site every month … yes 1.6 Billion visitors … every month.

The new business development model that has evolved here is the strategic decision to give away a service in return for acquiring a loyal subscriber base. Not just any subscriber base, but a HUGE base that covers every demographic: age, sex, religion, etc.

This database is an advertisers’ dream! Every possible way to slice data is available for the advertiser to play with and tweak. So, Mr. Frind’s business development efforts really revolve around which advertisers to allow into his network.

Oh and by the way, did I mention how many employees he has? Three! Yes, 3. His site is so simple to navigate, no fancy graphics or flash animation. In fact, it reminds of a cross between Craigslist and Google. But, it works! And, it doesn’t take an army of people to manage. So, guess what? The other beautiful thing about his business model is that his net profit is 50%! What an enviable position to be in.

The new way of business, then, is how to drive a huge subscriber list. Once you get that list, determine the makeup of that list, their demographics, what sells, how to sell, test and tweak. Simply put, you don’t need huge venture capital anymore, nor do you need to develop complex software either.

If this model doesn’t excite you, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Business Development – Art or Science

DavidChan — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:17:37 +0000

Business development used to be one of those “Huh? What kind job is that?” jobs. Most people understand sales, marketing and finance. But, for some companies, business development is hard to quantify. There are companies which consider Alliances or partnerships as business development. Others consider business development as a group that raises venture or financing money. It’s also been described as a role for mergers and acquisition. And, in some cases, business development has also connoted a sales function.

It’s no wonder that many companies have a hard time quantifying business development results. My definition of business development includes aspects of art and science. In addition, it’s probably one of the most strategic functions within a company, large or small. If utilized correctly, business development can result in raising significant venture money and financing, build an ecosystem of partners who will increase your presence and drive sales to the “nth” degree.

I was privileged to have worked for Oracle back in the 90s. Those were heady days during which the enterprise software market boomed. Database companies competed for market share and application software companies grew by leaps and bounds. This was also the time that Alliances and partnerships were built to create an ecosystem around the core products. Oracle emerged the leader in its space due to a large part its incredibly strong Alliance program.

At Everypath business development was both a strategic and functional role. In the year 2000 with zero revenue, a cool mobile idea and only a handful of people, how does one raise money to further expansion? The answer was we built strategic alliances with companies such as Accenture, Sun, HP and others. Our premise was that the technology was integral to the businesses of each of the aforementioned companies. In addition, these companies would be able to develop product and service lines around mobility.

In this capacity at Everypath, my challenge was to figure out what the mobility “software stack” looked like. How could customers use our technology and what software, hardware and services company would complement our products. My team created the stack and complementary partners and was responsible for raising $20 million in venture funding and financing as a result of our effort. In addition, we had the most comprehensive partner ecosystem in the then young, but growing mobility space.

The above are just two examples of how business development was implemented in the past. The science of business development was to figure out which players to engage with and art was to create a convincing story for collaboration. Of course, there is a follow up to that phase, which is the science of following up on the execution of the partnership / alliance.

The new world of online marketing and profit systems has its own unique challenges and business development. It requires a much improved way of thinking about alliances, partnerships, employees, etc. In fact, it’s almost antithetical to how the business was thought of in the past. In this new world, less is more. To be continued …