Ja-Naé Duane

In a recent Harvard Business Review article Eric Ries discusses, in so many words, the unpredictability of entrepreneurship as a product or service progresses from concept, development, and finally to its launch; he then offers two ways to keep entrepreneurs accountable throughout the process, and for the duration of a new product or service.  While the scope of the line of business Mr. Ries discusses is on a large scale, his basic idea that a minimum viable product – or baseline product – should be established early-on.  Then, there should be some measure or benchmark that can help to demonstrate learning on how to make the problem better.  Essentially, this means that entrepreneurs have to stay committed to a product beyond the initial excitement of getting something fresh off of the ground.

For small business entrepreneurs, this can translate downward to a micro level. It also reminds us all that we must not become complacent, particularly in a home-based business, where products and services that we offer can become to familiar and comfortable to us that we forget to expand and improve upon what we offer.