My wife Roselyn and I have fallen in love with New Zealand and more specifically Queenstown which is situated in the mountains of the South Island. Looking around the incredible vistas is like stepping into The Misty mountains from “The Lord of the Rings” middle earth.....it's stunning.

While walking around the township we discovered a hiking business that takes people on a five day walk from Queenstown, across the mountains and down into Milford Sound. For those of you unfamiliar with Milford Sound, it’s one of the most picturesque, unspoilt places on the Earth with waterfalls cascading thousands of feet into the ocean, wales, dolphins, and soaring mountain ranges. All good!

We’re pretty excited about going on the hike in just under two years’ time (we’re doing a lot of other already planned travel this year) but there’s one problem. We need to get a LOT fitter. To paraphrase Borimir from Lord of the Rings, “One simply does not walk into Milford Sound through the mountains. There’s ups, downs, river crossings and a host of other obstacles in the way.”

So we have a goal…..lose weight (which is a good thing) and get a lot fitter. Goals can be like New Year’s resolutions that are forgotten after the first week or you can choose to take them seriously.

We’ve now bought hiking boots and enough gear to make us feel a little adventurous. Our first hike was a few kilometres in the rain through a fern forest in the hills outside of Melbourne. We’re walking, riding or rowing machining every day to increase our stamina. The goal of the Milford track is inspiring us to get fit (which is always a good thing) and to get healthier.

Like our personal hiking goal every business needs to have goals to strive for. Whether it be the launch of a new product, a financial hurdle to strive for or getting a new client onboard. It’s healthy to have a target that you and your business can be measured against. In fact, I would go as far as to say that a business without a vision/goal is already in a state of decay.

So what’s the goal for your business and are you taking it seriously? Many people have lofty goals but few people actually put legs on them by taking the first steps forward. For Roselyn and I, we’re watching what we eat and doing “stuff”.

It could be that your first step is to pick up the telephone and call a perspective buyer for a domain you own. Whatever it is you need to do I can guarantee that your journey into the unknown will be like Frodo crossing the boundaries of your “Shire” and into the wilds of adventure.

Have a great weekend!

In Part 2 of this series you’ve expressed your passion to me about your new business idea. I’ve seen a prototype built out of bits of cardboard stuck together with glue and although it doesn’t do anything you’ve sold the vision. So what’s next?

I love passion but passion combined with a plan leads to action. At this stage, I’m after a one page summary document. I want to see whether you have the wherewithal to be able to synthesize your entire business onto a single page.

Before you tell me that’s impossible, Rupert Murdoch, founder of billion-dollar global international company News Limited, receives a one page summary every day that summarises his businesses across the world. If Rupert can do it then I’m sure you can.

So what’s on this page?

• The product/service in a maximum of two sentences.
• What problem is it solving and for which target market?
• How will you reach the target market?
• Financial opportunity
• What will it take to secure the opportunity?
• Who is currently involved?

Assuming I’m still interested then I will next ask you to present a summary deck of slides which dive a little deeper into the opportunity. I will work under the assumption that the dozen or so slides are backed up with a rigorous analysis which can be quickly accessed in an appendix.

Amongst other things, I’m wanting to drill down into any existing financials you may have. If I see a great big liability in the balance sheet you can be sure that I’ll ask what it is so please don’t try and cover it up.

If it’s a loan to shareholders then don’t be surprised when I suggest that it be forgiven…..the reason why you are raising capital upon a certain valuation is because of that input. Either that or massively drop your valuation. The whole point of putting cash into a fledgling business is to help it grow, not to pay back debts!

So what’s going to be on the slides?

1. What is your vision and value? What are you trying to achieve?
2. What problem you are solving and why this is important?
3. Who is your target market? You can describe this as John Smith who is struggling with….. Or do a full market analysis of the potential
4. The solution you are bringing to the market to solve its problems.
5. How are you going to make money from your offering? What is your position in the competitive landscape? Are you the high-price, high service offering or the low-cost mass market solution?
6. Do you already have some existing sales or early adopters? Have you proven your offering and are looking for expansion investment/help or are you yet to launch?
7. What is your marketing and sales strategy? What are the barriers to growth? How long will the sales cycle take? Do you have some winning solution that will beat customers compared to your competitors?
8. Are there any competitors (there always are) and state why your solution is better. What is your position in the competitive landscape?
9. The existing team – brief bio on each member
10. Financial projections and existing sales (if any). It’s important to highlight any key assumptions here.
11. What is the deal? You are wanting to raise $X for Y% of equity. Investors really would like to see the difference their investment will make to the business and where the investment will be spent.
12. You may include here what the exit strategy will be? IPO, trade sale etc.

The entire deck should take a maximum of 20-30 minutes to present and each slide should be succinct and to the point. The rest of the meeting with me will be you fielding questions as I prod around the assumptions and come to grips with your product/service.

Remember, I’m not trying to be mean! I’m trying to work out whether putting time into your venture will be a higher return compared to other opportunities.

Other documents you will want to have on-hand.

• Executive summary page
• Any technical documentation on the product
• Detailed financial modelling…..and I mean detailed.
• Proper market research that describes your target market in detail and who else is playing in the space. A good rule of them is the SWOT Analysis (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats). Think of your venture in these terms.

Some people have pitched for me not to invest cash but my expertise and they’ve wanted me to participate as an advisor. If the business is interesting enough then this may be the first step we take together.

With any investment, whether it be time or money there is always a dating period before a marriage. We both need to more fully understand how we can work together and make the venture successful.

I hope you've found this article worthwhile and that it helps you pitch not just to me but to others that may be interested in investing in your new business.

About a week ago, my wife and I decided to purchase a bird bath to attract the local birds outside my study window. The bath sits beautifully atop a pedestal and is replete with a turquoise glaze to make the water that much more enticing. I know if I was a bird I would be falling over myself to have a bit of a splash.

I had visions of a Disney cartoon where birds would be so grateful for my benevolence that they would sit on a branch outside the window and sing me songs all day. After setting the bath up I waited and waited and waited for the birds to come flocking in to enjoy what I’d provided for them. …..boy was I wrong.

Scratching my head, I thought to myself, “Maybe I need to entice them just a little bit more.” So off I went to the kitchen and grabbed a slice of bread to spread crumbs all over the lawn to attract the birds to my yard. They loved the bread but none did anything with the bird bath. Hmmmm….not good.

You would think the stupid birds would realise that I’d setup the bath for their enjoyment! What more do I have to do to get them to use it? To this day, I’ve been trying to think up new ideas to attract my avian customers to the bird bath and not one has used it……sigh……

Isn’t all of this exactly like building an online business? We spend hours with designers and programmers to get the “look and feel” just right and when we eventually launch we wonder why no one uses it.

We finally succumb to enticing customers with special offers, free giveaways and short-term discounts (eg. bread). Not surprisingly, the customers love the freebies but ignore the main offering. Eventually we convince ourselves that customers are stupid and just don’t have any idea of the value you are providing them. Can you see the similarities with my bird bath?

The fact is, the market is actually really smart. The reason why many businesses close is because they don’t have enough cash to carry them through the start-up phase of wooing customers repeatedly to their website. Modern customers rarely buy from an unknown business but will more likely buy if they continually see it….it gives them confidence that the business isn’t about to vanish.

So what do I need to do about the birds? Keep on attracting them with bread and let them get used to the bird bath. I’m just looking forward to the day when the first bird enjoys a dip.

Have a great weekend!

At the end of Part 1 I indicated that this article would be focusing on how to land a business partner/investor for your great idea. I’m going to use myself as a case study but understand that every investor will have different motivations for wanting to spend their time in a new venture.

Like any good business, it usually begins with something drawn on the back of an envelope. That spark of an idea that seems to ignite the very ether with potential and every time you think about it your heart skips a beat.

What am I looking for? In one word, passion. I’m sitting at the bar at NamesCon and you’ve come to me with your idea (I’m not going to steal it) and during your story telling about how you came up with the idea I’m looking for how much you want it. Are you going to crawl across broken glass, traverse a desert or swing across a chasm to see your idea flourish?

So many potential entrepreneurs pitch their ideas in such a boring manner that causes me to look for someone else to share a drink with. If your unexcited when your baby is about to be born, then what are you going to be like in six months when you’ve been up all night because it’s been crying? Get animated and make the story interesting!

For example, it could be like….I was having a shower the other day and it suddenly hit me. People having been trying to do “X” for so long and if I just did “Y” I could solve all of their problems. It was like a shining light from heaven! I couldn’t get out of the shower fast enough to write it all down. Have you ever had one of those moments where a whole lot of things just seem to click into place?

At this point I’m thinking this is a cool story and an interesting person that’s causing me to reflect on the times I've had my own epiphanies! Very importantly I instantly know how this new business is going to solve a problem for the target market.

At this point in our discussion, you pull out of your pocket a sheet of wrinkled paper and say, “Here’s the idea when I first came up with it while dripping wet from the shower.” I take a look at it an instantly notice that some of the writing is a little blurry from where the ink mixed with the water from your dripping hand.

I now know you’re either crazy or so passionate you don’t want to let your idea out of your sight! Let’s face it, most entrepreneurs are a little nuts as we have this inner burning desire to break new ground and build things where others have said it would be impossible.

If I believe you’re passionate then I’m next going to weigh up whether you’ve done anything since the idea first came to you. In other words, are you capable of getting the big boulder moving up the hill.

I’ve had so many people tell me that they can’t start because they need a whole pile of cash. As soon as I hear this then my mind has exited the conversation. What they’ve just proved is they can’t do anything unless someone else helps them. What am I? Your nanny?

Get a prototype together. I don’t care if it’s been made out of bits of string, lego or a picture on a power point slide. Sell me the dream! Get your phone out and show me what your wrinkled-up piece of paper is all about. I want to see you’ve begun thinking about the problems and how to overcome them.

Get off your backside and begin researching everything you need to make your dream come true. When you think you’ve done everything you can then look again. So many people are dreamers and very few are doers. I’ve even had some people try to convince me that they haven’t taken the idea forward because they were waiting for an investment so they could be paid to develop it further……now I know their nuts!

What you need to appreciate is that I'm time poor because I have no shortage of ideas to develop and projects already on the go. When you’re trying to attract me to your business what you’re saying is your business is so incredible that the returns will far surpass anything else that I’m currently working on

I know this is a really tough to understand, any successful entrepeneur will be in a very similar position to me. Remember the axiom.....if you want something done give it to a busy person. People with lots of time on their hands won't ever get around to what you asked them to do....a busy person knows how to manage their time.

If I end up making the decision to get involved with your venture then I can guarantee that I will put everything I can to get behind it. I have a lot of resources and I want anything I'm involved in to be successful.

In the next article I’m going to go through what you need to do for me after I’m convinced you are passionate and willing to do whatever it will take to get your business going.

We live in a social age where friends are quantified by Facebook and their “closeness to us” by the number of likes received. So are personal relationships really important anymore or are they something we should put on and take off like an old coat?

When I talk to the current generation that have grown up with social media as part of the way they manage their relationships it’s clear to me that something has changed. I’ve noticed that committing yourself to an event (eg. a birthday party) is something you leave to the last minute as there may be a better offer in your news feed. Or worse yet, commit yourself and then just don’t bother to go.

I know of a teenager that had a birthday party and only two thirds of the people turned up that said they would. Of the two thirds, about half a dozen cared enough to bring a birthday present. Sadly, birthday parties are now less about celebrating someone’s birthday and more about running an event that attracts your social peers.

I may be showing my age here, but I wouldn’t dream of turning up to a friend’s birthday without bringing a gift. It seems this courtesy has deserted the current generation in their self-absorbed focus on me, myself and I.

Many gen Y’s don’t have a party in fear that their “friends” will opt to go to something else and leave them looking like a social pariah. It’s a sad fact that a person’s word to do or attend an event is secondary to their desire for self-gratification.

It’s any wonder that Jane Austen movies like “Pride and Prejudice” are still hits. The character of Mr Darcy has become a figment of a girl’s imagination as they look around at his antithesis being displayed by the behaviour of the current generation of males who are more concerned with themselves rather than the “fair maidens”.

Friendships are transitory and survive as long as they are needed. The goal here is to have lots of acquaintances (ie. friends on Facebook or Snapchat) so your social calendar is full of meaningless parties where no one actually gets to know anyone else in a deeper sort of way.

Here’s what I see is the problem with all of this. It’s through deep friendships that we truly learn about ourselves and the good and bad aspects of our character. If you hop from one person to another I can guarantee that no one will take the time or effort to have any sort of serious conversation with you. It will be all froth and bubble that’s aimed at fulfilling the most superficial of desires.

I’m not against having a good time but there’s something so much more satisfying about having time with a friend you’ve known for many years. You can sit in silence together just enjoying each other’s company, laugh about some funny story from the past or lend an empathetic ear when one of you is going through a difficult time. The current generation looks on someone openly sharing as an opportunity for a tweet to increase their own social standing….so much for confidentiality.

Close friendships are often the training ground for close relationships. If you don’t know how to have a close friendship, then how are you going to survive a lifelong commitment to a relationship with a partner? Or how about committing yourself to children? The potential end result is fractured families with devastated children. Society does it’s best to cope but governmental child agencies and family courts are bursting at the seams as the demand for their services escalates. This is despite the huge sums of money invested.

There are so many basic interpersonal skills that have been lost. I was looking at a group of six friends at a coffee shop the other day. While one person was speaking, the other five were typing away on their phones. Why bother getting together?

Many young guys no longer have any idea how to ask a girl out let alone how to have a pleasant conversation because everything is typed with emojis. LOL and ROFL have now become words as raucous and hilarious have been dropped from the vernacular. It sometimes makes me wonder whether George Orwell’s 1984 Newspeak was just a little delayed with expressions such as “double good” to mean something is twice as good as good!

There was a great scene in the move “The Intern” when Anne Hathaway’s character (company CEO) commented to Robert De Niro (Ben - who is an older intern):

“How, in one generation, have men gone from guys like jack Nicholson and Harrison Ford to... take Ben, here. A dying breed. You know? Look and learn, boys. Because if you ask me, this is what cool is.”

So who was Ben? He was a courteous, hardworking and chivalrous older man that showed love and respect to those around him. He was more concerned with serving than being served. He ended up being promoted and appreciated by everyone in the company.

The other day I attended a friend’s daughter’s wedding and the minister insightfully spoke about the different between a marriage contract and a marriage covenant. Sadly, in many respects the contract reflects many of society’s current attitudes….it’s all about my rights, what I get and receive from my marriage. In contrast a covenant is all about giving, not getting, and has nothing to do with rights.

For those of you that are thinking that you’ve escaped what allures the Gen X, Y and even Zers then think again. When you look at President Trumps behaviour of late he is more interested in the content of his next tweet than keeping confidential private discussions with world leaders. If I was the Prime Minister of Australia, then I would insist on an NDA being signed prior to my next discussion.

So is social media bad and is the current generation completely “off the planet”? Like many tools (including money) social media is not bad but needs to be treated as a tool to encourage and foster relationships around the world. It is not a substitute for relationships. A quick IM is nice but don’t expect your relationship with someone to grow solely on the back of such activity.

I’m fifty-one years old and I’m well aware there is a generation gap between myself and the following generations. What I find revealing is that when you talk one-on-one to a young person they relate many of the same concerns that I have. They long for meaningful friendships and a person who will really listen to their cares and concerns.

So where to from here? I think society is in for a number of social shocks over the coming years. When I talk to parents, many of them are struggling to relate to their teenage children and this often places stresses on all the family relationships.

In my own family, the meal table has become a phone free zone….in fact, for a long time we had a sign which said exactly that. Each night we chat (verbally and face to face) with one another, listening and laughing at the days events without constant text interruptions. It’s now become a time that we all look forward to (the fact that Roselyn is a great cook helps!) and a breath of fresh air is breathed into the almost lost art of conversation.

Have a great week!