This post is sponsored by Microsoft in honor of National Entrepreneurship Week February 20 to 24, 2017. On this episode, I cohost with Melanie Gass from Microsoft and our guest is Kevin Weiss from M13 about collaboration.
The good news is that it’s easier than ever to start a company. The bad news is that there is more competition than before. Kevin Weiss discusses how, as a result, small differences are amplified in the market. Companies need to learn fast and focus on what they do best and leave the rest to collaboration with partners.
For example, distribution really can no longer be a competitive advantage, since so many are just outsourcing that to Amazon. Kevin believes that the successful companies need to focus on what are the 20% of the inputs yielding 80% of the outputs. As he says “where do we have unfair advantages?” i.e. what does our company do better than anyone else? This is critical since there is really very little room for average companies to make a profit in today’s market.
Listen to this radio segment with Kevin Weiss from M13 on the entire show #417.
Kevin joined Courtney and Carter Reum after they sold VeeV, an organic spirits company, to help them launch M13, a diversified investment and brand development company based in Los Angeles. Prior to joining M13, Kevin worked in Bogota, Colombia at Polymath Ventures, a company builder launching businesses for the Latin American middle class and in Cape Town, South Africa restructuring an agriculture technology company and teaching yoga in the South African prison system.
Melanie Gass, Sr. Business Development Manager for Microsoft and the brainchild behind National Entrepreneurship Week. She helps shape Microsoft Community Connections (MCC) to deliver strong value to customers and influencers.
