How You Start a Better Business With More Certainty to Succeed

If you're already running a business, the following advice may come a little late (you will see, in a second, why).

But if you head out to build a new business, mind the following advice.

It could save you weeks, months, and even years that you're stuck in a commoditized up-hill battle like business.

And it could give you the bliss of having a blockbuster business with fat and healthy margins that you can easily grow or sell to your liking.

Let me show you the strategy in a story.

We love to go to Italy.

It's easiest by car, as we live in the south of Germany.

On our way to Italy, we always have to pass the Brenner Valley.

And when we go through it, I always see these Fortress-like Castles built on top of these steep mountains.

I just give them a short glance (still need to focus on the guy ahead of me on the highway).

But still, the picture of these castles put up on the steepest and highest rock to be found is impressive.

Now, when I ask you, "WHY?" - Why had the Duke taken all the hassle of building his place on top of the most difficult place to reach, it's super-simple and very intuitive for you to give me the right answer.

Duh, he wanted to have a save spot that none of his enemies could reach, conquer and take over!

EXACTLY!

That's why the Duke didn't build his castle on the flat ground, open for every enemy to just walk in.

He has done something fully intuitive and vital, he has baked the moat right in from the start.

Just imagine for a second if he hadn't done that. If his newly built castle was standing on flat mother earth.

How could he protect against his enemies, wanting to take over and grab all his goodies?

He would have to try and set up something like a moat AFTER THE FACT.

Because taking his castle and lifting it up the hill was out of question, just TOO LATE.

So he would need to come up with all kinds of second- or third-degree measures to fend off the bad guys.

BUT these measures would all be significantly less effective - maybe not even doing their job.

Now, the medieval Dukes KNEW this beforehand, so they took all the major extra effort to put their castles on a steep mountain.

Now, when you plan or start out to build your next business, I advise you to think and act just like the medieval Duke!

Put your company castle on top of a steep hill.

Don't even start building it, before you've found the hill.

Don't start building it on the flat ground, hoping you will come up with some moat later.

And, above all, don't look for a tiny hill that my grandmother could climb up with her walker and mistake it for a steep mountain.

"Ahh, we have this great feature that no-one else has."

"Ohh, we will make our software easier to use."

"Hey, we will create the greatest brand on earth, so people will never choose another vendor."

All that are weak, grandmother-will-climb-this-with-her-walker types of hills.

But in the harsh cold business-arena you're not facing my grandmother as a threat but an ever present pack of blood-sniffing, hyper-aggressive, competitors who will try everything and do anything just to come at you and invade, bomb, undermine or crash your business castle in any other way possible just to grab their piece of the business you're making.

So you better have put your castle on a steep mountain from the start.

To sum it up:

Know your moat beforehand.

Ensure it's a strong one.

Only start when having that in place.

This could give you the bliss of having a blockbuster business with fat and healthy margins that you can easily grow or sell to your liking while having the bloodhounds bark and howl at the mountain wall, but not being able to come at you.

And here comes the best part: Once you have this perspective and start LOOKING for it, the most beautiful possibilities for strong, steep-mountain-like moats open up.

BUT it all starts with the understanding of needing to do so.

That's the whole point of this little post.

That's the point of my Duke story.

Let's talk about the HOW of finding the moats at another day.

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