Page 17 - The Bootstrapper Bible

ChangeThis named Jeff Bezos did. Microsoft and IBM didnʼt invent the supercool Palm Pilot. A much small- er company called US Robotics bought an even smaller company that developed it. Motorola and GE didnʼt invent the modern radar detector. Cincinnati Microwave did. Big companies will almost always try to reduce invention risk by assigning a bureaucracy. You, on the other hand, can do it yourself. Or hire one person to do it. Thatʼs why you so often see great new ideas come out of tiny companies. Theyʼre faster and more focused. If you try to steal the giant’s lunch, the giant is likely to eat you for lunch. 5 THE UNDERDOG. When Viacom or Microsoft or General Motors comes knocking, lots of smaller companies smell money. They know that the person theyʼre meeting with doesnʼt own the company (that employee might be five or ten levels away from anyone with total profit re- sponsibility) so theyʼre inclined to charge more. After all, they can afford it! In addition to charging big companies full retail prices, smaller businesses are used to the hassles that big companies present. Purchase orders and layers of bureaucracy. Lawyers and insurance policies and more. So in order to deal with the big guysʼ inherent inefficiencies, they have to plan ahead and build the related costs into their prices when dealing with the Viacoms, Microsofts, and GMs. Big companies donʼt treat people very well sometimes, and people respond in kind. You, on the other hand, run a small company. So you can acquire the distribution rights to a video series for no money down. Or convince Mel Gibson to appear in your documentary for union scale. Or get your lawyer to work for nothing, for a while, just because youʼre doing good things. | iss. 6.01 | i | U | X | + | Seth Godin is the author of Purple Cow. BUY it here. h 17/103 f