All in Entrepreneurship

The One Question You Should Ask In An Interview...Isn't Enough

The One Question You Should Ask In An Interview...Isn't Enough

Omer Abdullah
Aspirations, Careers, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life, Personal Codes, Strategy

If you spend any time online looking for advice (of any sort - personal or business), you’re bound to come across articles that espouse the “1 question you need to ask” or the “3 signs that you’ll be successful”. The intention behind these articles is clear - if you’re on the path to X, and if you pay attention to these one or two or three things, then you’ll get there.

I get the simplicity of the approach and I appreciate it’s allure, especially if the advice is coming from someone we consider to be successful (or from someone who works for a company we consider to be conventionally successful).

Defining Happiness

Defining Happiness

Omer Abdullah
Aspirations, Careers, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life, Personal Codes

“To me, happiness is about an expectation of positive change. Every year before 2016, there was an improvement in my expectations — in the team, the product, or the company. This was the first time in my life when the present year felt worse than the last.“ 

The above quote come from Sahil Lavingia’s Medium article titled “Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company”, which recounts how he built what by any normal standard would be considered a successful business but a failure by traditional Venture Capital standards (and as he says, his own).

Get Used To Criticism

Get Used To Criticism

Omer Abdullah
Aspirations, Careers, Communications, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life, Personal Codes, Strategy, Teams

If you’re going to do anything different, you’re going to get criticized.

There’s no shortage of folks willing to offer you advice if you’re thinking about a new venture, a new project or a new position. They’ll range from friends, family as well as business colleagues - well intentioned or otherwise. Some of it you might actively ask for, but a lot of it will be offered to you, at no extra cost.

Be The Guide - Not The Victim

Be The Guide - Not The Victim

Omer Abdullah
Careers, Communications, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Marketing, Sales

Donald Miller is an author and businessman who helps organizations tell better stories. His message is that, in a business world that’s full of noise and clutter, the only way to cut through is to tell stories and engage your audience - in any type of setting.

One of his key themes is that there are really 4 key roles you can play in any story - hero, villain, guide or victim.

Take Your Power Back

Take Your Power Back

Omer Abdullah
Leadership, Life, Communications, Careers, Personal Codes, Entrepreneurship, Teams, Aspirations

We all like the idea of getting along.

In business relationships specifically, harmony is an essential ingredient in successful, long term relationships. If we have harmony, we have alignment, we have consensus (at least in terms of direction), we have the grounds for collective momentum.

The trick is in making sure that the basis for that harmony is real. Harmony isn’t about happiness, hugs and kisses. It’s often hard to get to, many times requiring debate, disagreement and (periodic) discontent. Achieving real harmony is almost always hard work.

Do The (Next) Right Thing

Do The (Next) Right Thing

Omer Abdullah
Aspirations, Careers, Entrepreneurship, Investment Banking, Leadership, Life, Management Consulting, Personal Codes, Teams

“There's a concept in Hinduism called "dharma," which means "duty." Your dharma is to always do *the next right thing*, without attachment to the consequences (karma). When you follow your dharma, good karma naturally flows from it. When you don't, it doesn't.“

I’m not a religious person, nor would I call myself overly spiritual, but I do believe in the old saying, “what comes around, goes around”. Which is probably why the above tweet from Asha Rangappa resonated so strongly with me the other day.

Learn The Script - Then Forget It

Learn The Script - Then Forget It

Omer Abdullah
Careers, Communications, Entrepreneurship, Life, Marketing, Sales

In any pitch - whether it’s to make a sale, get a job, get a promotion, or fund an initiative - the story you tell is all-important. It has to inform, educate and (many times) entertain and inspire the audience, so that they ultimately say yes, and agree to whatever your “ask” is.

So how you craft that story is absolutely critical. From the key themes, to the overall flow/structure, to the specific messages/story points, to the facts and anecdotes that illustrate those messages, it’s essential to flesh out all of those elements.

Cater To Who Matters - Not To Everyone Else

Cater To Who Matters - Not To Everyone Else

Omer Abdullah
Strategy, Leadership, Personal Codes, Careers, Entrepreneurship, Communications, Creativity, Marketing, Aspirations, Life

I’m reading a book called “Coal Black Mornings” by Brett Anderson, the lead singer and founder of the British band, Suede, which had their heyday in the BritPop era of the 1990s through early 2000s.

(Suede is in my Top Five bands of all time, but while popular in Britain, they’ve been largely ignored in the US. If you haven’t heard of them, they’re absolutely worth checking out - start with the first two albums.)

There’s a passage in the book where he talks about his song writing process, and writes:

Engage And Entertain (Or It's Always Better to Pull Than Push)

Engage And Entertain (Or It's Always Better to Pull Than Push)

Omer Abdullah
Sales, Leadership, Marketing, Strategy, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Communications

The advent of recording technology (from the cassette tape to the VCR to the current digital formats) as well as the ability to access audio-visual entertainment on demand has allowed us to do the one thing that marketers hate:

Skip their ads.

For the most part, you don’t have to sit through a 15, 30 or 60 second ad just to get to the content you’re actually there for. You just hit the forward button and presto! No marketing message, no advertiser trying to sell you something.

It’s Personal, Not Personalized

It’s Personal, Not Personalized

Omer Abdullah
Strategy, Management Consulting, Leadership, Sales, Aspirations, Entrepreneurship, Creativity, Retail, Marketing

There’s a difference between “personal” and “personalized”. 

In an age where Marketers are working to find ways to make their messages more customized, more tailored, more specific to who we are, there’s still a marked difference between the two. Just because that email is addressed to you, or there’s a special offer made on your birthday, doesn’t actually make it personal. It’s simply programmed to appear that way.  

You Won't Change The World By Cutting Costs

You Won't Change The World By Cutting Costs

Omer Abdullah
Careers, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Leadership, Management Consulting, Personal Codes, Private Equity, Retail, Strategy, Sales

Strategy is an interesting topic.

You and I can be working in similar areas of management. We can have gone through the same set of experiences in our time at our organization. We can even have a similar view of what defines success in our chosen markets. Yet we can have markedly different perspectives as to what approach it will take to get there. And that’s perfectly normal - in fact, it’s almost always a good thing.

When It's Too Soon To Quit...

When It's Too Soon To Quit...

Omer Abdullah
Aspirations, Careers, Communications, Entrepreneurship, Investment Banking, Leadership, Life, Personal Codes, Private Equity, Strategy, Sales

In my last post, I talked about the thought process we (should) go through when deciding if it’s time to quit what we’re doing.

While there were multiple idea threads that inspired that post, one of them was an article by Mariam Naficy, the Founder and CEO of Minted, an online design marketplace. In that article, Mariam talked about how she raised a small seed round from friends and family and then launched the business, originally intending it to be a lifestyle business. And then:

Everyone Has A Platform (Part 1)

Everyone Has A Platform (Part 1)

Omer Abdullah
Aspirations, Careers, Communications, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Life, Marketing, Personal Codes

The best thing about technology today is that everyone has a platform.

It doesn’t matter whether our preferred medium is in written, audio or visual form, we have access to all the technology we need to create, publish, broadcast and market our message to anyone, whether they’re in our hometown or all the way across the other side of the globe.

How Do You Measure Success?

How Do You Measure Success?

Omer Abdullah
Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Investment Banking, Private Equity, Aspirations, Personal Codes, Sales

We’re in a business environment that, for the most part, is fixated on growth. One that values year over year, double and triple digit revenue increases as absolutely essential to being considered a “successful” company, to not be considered a failure.

In particular, if the organization is funded, that’s almost always a base level expectation. You aren’t being funded to simply create a going concern, you’ve been given a charter to create something transformative, huge, the next proverbial unicorn. (The more prominent the funders, the more prominent this expectation becomes.)

There's Always Room For Value (Part 2 - Competition)

There's Always Room For Value (Part 2 - Competition)

Omer Abdullah
Careers, Aspirations, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Marketing, Sales, Strategy

In my last post, I talked about how there’s always room for value when deciding to enter a market and that the key is in defining that value in a way that matters to the customer, and is profitable for you.

In this post, I’ll discuss the idea of competition and how defining who you compete with, as well as how they go to market, can and should influence your decision to play within a specific space.

Now, our initial tendency as we evaluate a specific market will be to consider the most obvious competitor in that space. This is our direct competition, and they are always the ones with the biggest brand, revenues, mindshare.

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