Want to build a billion dollar company from your small town? David Thomson wrote the book on it, Blueprint to a Billion, profiled on Fortune Small Business. (Brought to our attention by Be Excellent.)
Here are the seven principles Thompson postulates:
1. Create and sustain a breakthrough value proposition. Create an entirely new market for their products and services, redefine an existing market or simply suck all the oxygen out of a market by underpricing the competition.
2. Exploit a high-growth market. It’s kind of tough to hit a billion in sales if the total demand for your product doesn’t exceed a billion dollars.
3. Focus relentlessly on cash flow. As a result they are able to finance their own growth at less cost than competitors who take on debt or give up equity to investors.
4. Leverage big-brother alliances.
5. Pack your board with industry experts.
6. Use marquee customers to build credibility.
7. Build an inside-outside leadership team. In most such partnerships, one leader concentrates on internal operations while the other leader represents the company for clients and investors.
Thompson did three years of research and quantified his data. If you are looking to grow into a super big company, give it a read.
small biz rural entrepreneurship David Thomson Blueprint to a Billion growth
- Downtown is your town’s core: How to make your case - February 22, 2021
- Zoom Towns: attracting and supporting remote workers in rural small towns - December 10, 2020
- In an economic crisis, spend your brainpower before your dollars - November 25, 2020
- Video: How to fill empty car dealership buildings for the holidays - November 6, 2020
- How has 2020 changed the challenges rural small towns face? Tell us here - October 20, 2020
- The Idea Friendly Method to surviving a business crisis - October 6, 2020
- Join me for the Rural Renewal Symposium online Oct 13 - September 26, 2020
- Cheap placemaking idea: instant murals - September 11, 2020
- Refilling the rural business pipeline - July 7, 2020
- Huge vacant buildings: grants to renovate? - June 9, 2020
What do you think of the wholesale diamond industry?