JOHN W.

MULLINS

INTRODUCTION

Every new business has questions and uncertainities. One need to resolve these before writning a plan This book shows how to avoid those mistakes that everyone else does. The advice is drawn from lessons learned by real entrepreneurs.

Why to read this book?

Most opportunities are not what they appear to be, as the business failure statistics demonstrate. Majority of ventures fail or opportunity related issues only: Market reasons Industry reasons Entrepreneurial team reasons

What will be the result?

It enables entrepreneurs to avoid impending disaster. It decreases the entrepreneur s risk of entering a venture that simply has no chance.

The flaws that are identified can be fixed.

It provides evidence based research foundation for a persuasive and compelling business plan.

My opportunity: why will or wont this work?

You may have capital and a talented management team, but if you are fundamentally in a lousy business, you wont get the kind of results you would in a good business. All businesses are not created equal.
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Long time venture capitalist William P. Egan II

Will the fish bite?

Do customers matter?

The customer.. is the ultimate reason for whatever the organization produces. Without customers, there can be no business.

iMode delivers what Japanese mobile phone users want

How many companies can boast of acquiring nearly 20 million customers in just two years? Not many! In the case of Japans NTT DoCoMos iMode, the company had conceived a product with carefully targeted appeal. Launched in February 1999, Japans wireless phone service iMode had signed up nearly 20 per cent of the total Japanese population by the middle of 2001. Even more impressive, in just two years the company became the most widely used mobile Internet service in the world.

iModes target markets

In 1999, the Japanese population numbered 126 million. only 12.2 per cent of the population had Internet access, compared with 39 per cent of the US population, 21 per cent of the British population and 23 per cent of the Korean population. At the end of 1999, 44.5 per cent of the Japanese population had mobile phones, compared with 40 per cent in the UK and 31 per cent in the USA.

They depended on media for the information.

One target market that intrigued Takeshi Natsuno, Executive Director of NTT DoCoMo, included consumers interested in the financial markets and their own personal finances. To appeal to this group, iMode developed relationships with the banking industry. Another target market comprised customers with an eye for comics. To serve this segment, iMode contracted the publishing firm Shueisha to provide weekly comic strips for a monthly fee of 300 yen (less than 2). The toy company Bandai sold charappa or cartoon character. By February 2000, Bandai had 400,000 iMode subscribers. The success of iMode is because we adjust our site to Internet users. Unlike a dial-up Internet connection, iMode Web access was always on, allowing customers to use the Internet without dialing the phone .

The price was right

iMode priced its services based on the amount of information downloaded, not the connection time. The pricing format was reasonable. Emails cost 1 yen (5p) per 20 Japanese characters (40 roman letters). Downloading still images cost 7 yen (4p), checking share prices cost 26 yen (14p), and transferring funds from bank accounts cost 60 yen (33p). Billing method was also convenient for users.

Results

NTT DoCoMo created iMode at a time when the Japanese market for mobile phones was reaching maturity and users were in need of new services. Its foresight and customer understanding led to impressive results: 4.5 million subscribers in iModes first year of operation.

50,000 new customers each day over the next two years.
By May 2001, iMode had 22 million subscribers, approximately 20 per cent of Japans population making DoCoMos domestic customer base twice the size of its closest rivals'. Possibly more impressive, however, is that in 2001, DoCoMo had a $187 billion market capitalization, the highest of any company in Japan. Its market cap exceeded that of its parent, NTT.

Lessons learned from iMode

DoCoMos new service was an instant hit because of its designers intimate familiarity with the Japanese market. Identifying clearly who its target markets were allowed the company to offer an Internet-access mobile phone service. DoCoMo segmented its markets behaviourally and designed offerings of different downloadable information for each segment: those interested in financial markets, comic strips, cartoons and so on.

The iMode story also provides an example that answers the often-asked question, Which must come first, the idea (or technology) or the customer need? In iModes case, Internet and communications technology created the possibility of delivering information to mobile customers, any time, anywhere. The application of those technologies to the particular set of consumer needs that iMode targeted then followed. Thus, its not so important whether recognition of the need comes first, or whether the technology that makes new things possible comes first. Either route can be successful. Whats crucial, though, is that at the end of the day, theres a clear target market, a clear customer need, and that what the opportunity offers satisfies that target markets need in a way thats faster, better, cheaper or otherwise more beneficial again, benefits, not features than other solutions.

Thank You