An Open Question

Hello again,
I got a quick question for those who have a slight interest in business or economics. What makes a good venture?
Is it the team that makes up the venture?
It can be shown that a select group of smart, creative individuals which have skills that complement the other team member's skills is essential in starting a successful venture. Think of RIM or Microsoft, it wasn't Mike Lazaridis or Bill Gates that built the empire by themselves. By using one another's skill they could achieve the adversities that face any venture. In addition working in a team can help keep an organization motivated even in tough times.

Is it the idea that makes up the venture?
Why is it that two different ideas - the Apple iPod and the Segway Human transporter can take two separate paths? The Apple iPod being in large part a commercial success, and the Segway being a horrible failure. The answer lies in the idea - Apple asked how can we revolutionize a market that has already been defined. On the other hand the Segway creates the market, for which we later discover there is no demand for. There was no demand due to the cost, the practiciality and frankly the legality of using it. It was great on paper but lacked realisitc practical use. The iPod on the other hand was a success not because of one key component in the idea, but a combination of segments of the idea. The iPod's story is imagine a world of portable music that is convenient, no longer do you have to go out in the cold to buy CDs or cassettes, but rather buy them online and use the seemless solution that is iTunes to transfer the music to your device. The design of the iPod was also a key factor, the user interface of the iPod and the hardware design made the device look especially appealing to youth. It felt like a device that supplied you enjoyment rather than you having to supply it with hacks and fiddling around with the device - something Microsoft and the Zune didn't learn from.

Is it the story that makes a venture successful?
Often times ventures have a great team, a wonderful idea but fail to discuss the story - which is precisely why someone should care about the product/service and how it would affect them. Often times entrepenuers in describing a solution perform mental masturbation about the technical aspect of the idea. However, most people could care less about this. Consider the following technical detail:
Using the data provided by your operators, we can use tools such as Six Sigma and CPk analysis which in turn could reveal to us how your systems are performing.

Compared to this:
As you are aware downtime is a factor in your plants and it is something that is chewing away from your productivity not to mention your bottom line. How much does downtime cost your oraganization? How many contracts are lost as a result of poor quality and manufacturing processes? Wouldn't it be nice to permanently reduce the amount of downtime your factory, improve the quality of the products you produce and ultimately win more contracts? Our solution can do precisely this and I would like to show you how!

At which point you can shove in the technical details to prove that you are not bullshitting them!
Every idea has a story and most people who start a venture are so engrossed in the development that they forget to realize the story behind why they started the venture and what the current and possibly future goals of the venture will be in terms of real-world problems the solution will solve!

Is it a matter of leadership?
Ventures by their very nature pursue ideas that are multi-faceted, typically complex in the long term and/or short term. There are some many different things that CAN be done in a venture and so many things that NEED to be done in a venture. A good venture must have a strong leader to focus on the organization on satisfying the needs rather than the wants. They must be able to make tough decisions that may be unpopular and may cause trouble down the road. To me a good leader is a pilot of an airplane - he realizes that there are hundreds of people on board and he will do whatever it takes to make sure the plane lands safely. Similarly leaders must be able to fire people who are making bad decisions and doing harm to the venture. If one of the co-pilots (management) is not doing their job, than they must be pulled from the job, not so much because they are doing a bad job but in the name of humanity. What would you rather see one person being chucked off an airplane or the co-pilot making a bad decision that causes the plane to crash and burn? Notice in the current auto-crisis Rick Wagoner failed to lead General Motors as he tweaked parts of the organization and made minor changes, which meant that GM fell further behind Toyota. Only until fire was put under his feet did he start to make the changes necessarry. This is precisely why the only humane thing to do is to let him go!

Is it a matter of the structure of the organization?
Why is it that large organizations (SAP, and Microsoft) fail to innovate rapidly? When they were kids in the sense of the size/maturity of the organization, innovation occured every second and growth became rapid? Well it appears that growth can be a double-edged sword. As organizations grow additional assistance and eventually bureacracy is introduced. Now people who want to try innovative things must face a committee, which like most committtees banter and slow down the progression of the idea. How many great ideas were never implemented at Microsoft due to the size and scope of the organization? Sometimes big organizations believe that they are so big that they are invincible (IBM in the 1980s) - Microsoft much like SAP have this type of mentality and it is only a matter of time that they fade from relevance.

So those are my questions and thoughts. Your feedback is appreciated. It's just a thought!