(Your Money Machine) Setting your Vision - Russell Colbourne

​Russell Colbourne : Your Money Machine
Season 5 Episode 2 – Setting your Vision.

12 April 2021

INTRODUCTION
Your business is Your Money Machine.  Starting or growing a business has been likened to assembling an aircraft midway through its first flight. Having started and exited from a number of businesses including an Airline, I know what it takes to get your business off the ground. In this show, I’ll share some of the stories and lessons I’ve learned over my 30 years of entrepreneurial business experience as a Chartered Accountant with companies like Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. 

During season 5 we’ll be following a structured path to building a globally scalable, investable business based on the Founder Institute Pre-Seed Accelerator flagship program that will create a logical roadmap to success.  I’ll take you through some real life business building examples including my recipes for creating high performing organisations and we will take a look at some the mistakes I made along the way and the lessons I learned from them.

This show won’t build your business for you – only you can do that, but I will show you how to build your business efficiently and effectively so you won’t have to waste time and money doing things out of sequence, back tracking over work already done or making the same mistakes I and many others have made before you.


What You Need to Know - The What

• #1 (Ambition) Research problems that need to be solved for all of humanity by reading about the UN Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, and their specific targets (https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs). 
• #2 (Ideation) Develop a set of business ideas. 
• #3 (Customer Problems) Translate your Ideas into Customer Problems that you will explore turning into a business. 
• #4 (Feedback) Share your Customer Problem with your peers and ask for honest feedback and constructive criticism. 
• #5 (Listening to Feedback) Practice listening to non-supportive feedback. Founders regularly fail due to a natural ‘confirmation bias,’ where information gets ignored that does not support a desired view. 
• #6 (Uniquely Qualified) For each Customer Problem that you are focusing on, write one paragraph on why you are uniquely qualified to work on the problem, which may include your education, your employment, your beliefs or your passions. 
• #7 (Startup Toolkit) Get a Startup Toolkit

What You Need to Do - The How

• Listen to the Show
• Download the Show notes
• Follow the Podcasts and 
• Apply the principles to your business
• #1 (Ambition) Think about ways that your current business ideas may affect one million people for the better. Write a bulleted list of the two SDGs that you are most passionate about. Spend some time to reflect on ways that you can turn the two SDGs that you are passionate about into a viable business ideas. Write a couple of sentences next to each of the two SDGs about these new business ideas. Reflect upon how ambitious your current business ideas are and how you may try to be more ambitious. Write a couple of sentences on how you will be more ambitious, and consider adding one or more of the new business ideas for development in the program. (1 Hour)
• #2 (Ideation) Write down a bulleted list of any business ideas that you have had over the last couple of years to build a business or create an offering, including the new business ideas related to the SDGs. 
• #3 (Customer Problems) Translate your Ideas into Customer Problems that you will explore turning into a business. Start by identifying the Customer that will pay you for the Idea. Next, identify the Problem that you are solving for this customer that they can not find convenient or reasonably priced solutions to. Your primary goal right now is to find a real Problem that people urgently want to have solved. 
• #4 (Feedback) Write one paragraph on what you have learned from the feedback, and what if anything you intend to change. 
• #5 (Listening to Feedback) Meet independently with two peers. Describe your favorite Customer Problem, and then ask the peer to elaborate for a couple of Minutes on one piece of negative feedback. Listen, without speaking, responding or defending. The person is helping you improve your business. When the feedback is finished, give the peer a one minute summary of their feedback.
• #6 (Uniquely Qualified) Write a second self-reflective paragraph on why you believe that you will be able to run a business that focuses on the Customer Problem for 10 years, and why that Customer Problem will be worth dedicating 10 years of your life to solving. 
• #7 (Startup Toolkit) Get a Startup Toolkit that includes: (1) a laptop that is not associated with an employer, (2) a smartphone that is not associated with an employer, (3) a private email address that you check frequently, including the weekends, (4) an automated backup service for your laptop or an online service to keep all files related to your business safe in the event of loss of your laptop, and (5) a complete set of personal social media accounts.

Shows 

• Previous: Season 5 Intro
• Next: Episode 3 – Validating your business idea

 
Written by Russell Colbourne, FCCA, GAICD
Your Money Machine

Russell is a CFO and Entrepreneur who has worked across a diverse range of industries over the past 30 years.  After a short service commission as a pilot flying Seaking Helicopters in the British Royal Navy, Russell studied business and qualified as a Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA) in the UK. Since then he has been integral with the start-up of many successful companies and operations within larger organisations.  He has bought, sold and spun off business operations in the UK, Australia and the US. 

In 1994 Russell joined Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airlines where he was responsible for a number of innovative services that were, at the time, ground breaking and helped revolutionise air transport.  From launching the world’s first limo boat on the River Thames to developing the world’s first handheld check-in device and implementing drive through check-in booths around the world, Russell has helped the Virgin Group deliver unparalleled customer service. In 2000 Russell was the first of the Virgin team to arrive in Australia to start a new low cost Airline, and within 8 months had built a team operating flights between Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.

Russell now works as a Part Time CFO for a number of SME businesses in South Australia.  He is the owner of www.chiball.com.au, a health and wellbeing business, and www.feesable.co a crowdfunding website for educational costs. In 2019 Russell and his business partner Peter Hattam created Feesable which graduated from the Founder Institute Program in 2020.  He is one of the local Directors of the Founder institute Program in Adelaide where he lives with his wife and 3 teenage sons.  
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To find out more about the Founder Institute program and how you can take your idea to a globally scalable, investable business, please see www.fi.co  The material used in this show is based on the Founder Institute program and is used with permission.