strategy Archives

November 2, 2021 By Denis Oakley

Building Feedback Loops into Your Business Model

Now that we have spent some time thinking about other business models in the market place let’s start developing this one. Today we are going to look at key resources in the business model, and how feedback loops make your business model more powerful.

A good place to start next is to look at the key resources that you have or need. These are the building blocks that you use to create the value proposition. In other words, it’s what you know (in this case), the factories you have, the skilled staff, the patents and processes.

Business Model Key Resources

In our example, my key resource is ‘Denis Oakley’ as all the IP is contained within my head. Well, most of it. A lot of it can be found on this website (like this article) and other social media websites. Let’s separate this out.

IP
Brand & reputation
Platforms – website & social media accounts

Business model key resources - these are what you need in order to create the value that is going to solve your customers problem — Business model key resources – these are what you need in order to create the value that is going to solve your customers’ problem

We can phrase that in several different ways, I could break down IP into experience and processes for example. This is a good starter and lets us start exploring how we can develop the business model.

This key resources approach works better when you have an existing business. You want to leverage existing assets. Some may be relevant and useful. Others you may not want to use.

Key Resources in New Ventures

If you are creating a business model from scratch the approach here is to ask – what do I need to build the value proposition. If I was a new venture in car hire I could start by asking, what are the different types of key resources that I could use to create my value proposition.

Here are a few

I buy lots of cars
I lease lots of cars from a car leasor or manufacturer
I resell cars from an existing car rental company
I get consumers to lease me (or other consumers) the cars.

Straight off there are 4 different ways of getting the key resources. 1 asset-heavy. the others asset-light.

Business Model Feedback Loops

Let’s now have a look and check out the logic model that we are building for consulting. Experience and IP (key resources) enable me to deliver the value proposition. That solves the customer’s problem, and as I do that it generates more experience and IP making it easier to deliver better results as we keep doing this.

Business model feedback loop - here is an example of a feedback loop, where the better the business model works, the better it will work in future. — Business model feedback loop – here is an example of a feedback loop, where the better the business model works, the better it will work in future.

What we have now is a feedback loop.

These feedback loops are critical. What they do is they bring the different parts of the business model together. The better they are the tighter all the pieces are tied together. The tighter the pieces are tied together the strong and more powerful the business model is as a system for generating money and disrupting competitors.

Spend time to identify all your feedback loops

As we design the business model we will keep identifying them. I’m not going to do all of them as we go through each step. It is something that you should be doing. The value in the exercise is not the few minutes you spend writing on the paper. It’s the time that you spend suckling your pencil as you start seeing how things work.

As a rule of thumb – every component of the business model should be in one or more feedback loops. If you have written something down on the canvas and it is not in a feedback loop, then why is it there.

The feedback loops show how each component is critical to generating value or profit. If something is in the model and you can’t create a logical argument (feedback loop) for it to create value… cut it out.

As you look for feedback loops, sometimes you are going to spot gaps. Sometimes you will see that you need something else to make the feedback loop work. Fill that gap, and play with the new structure.

Uber Feedback Loop Example

Here’s an example that I have abstracted out of the canvas for Uber.

Uber business model feedback loops showing the power of driver acquisition

As they get more drivers they get more coverage. That means that Uber can do faster pickups, which delights customers, and so Uber is used more, and that creates more demand for drivers.

At the same time as coverage increases, drivers get more trips, which allows uber to offer lower prices (spreading fixed costs over more trips) which again generates more demand.

Use Feedback Loops to improve your business model

As you start seeing feedback loops like these arising from your business model it does a number of things.

You start to:

optimise the feedback loops

look for and design in feedback loops

These are critical ways to transform the way that you compete with other companies in the space.

What next?

If you don’t want to come back to the blog every day click this link to get posts in your inbox – http://go.denis-oakley.com/newsletter .

Do explore these links to get more insights on how to build better business models

October 28, 2018 By Denis Oakley

Rent the Runway Business Model Canvas

In this article, I describe Rent The Runway Business Model Canvas and how they effectively solve their customer’s problems to make money. I also look at the infrastructure that Rent The Runway requires to create and deliver this value

Customers

Rent the Runway ( RTR) targets middle-aged affluent women in US coastal cities. The women are typically between 25 and 50 and have well paid professional jobs in cities like New York, Washington or San Francisco.

This customer segment was targeted because they spend a lot of clothes, Jennifer Hyman the founder of RTR mentioned spending $2,000 on a dress that she wore once. For women, far more than for men clothing is an expression of self, of identity and this creates a deep emotional bond with what they wear.

The RTR business model creates value for its customers in several areas. The customers work, often long hours, and despite being well paid live in a highly consumerist society. There is always more that they want to buy, and this exerts great pressure on their wallets.

The dresses are also strong symbols of status and traditionally they have been a Veblen good with the price being an indication of both status and quality.

Value Proposition

The value that Rent the Runways creates renting out Veblen gods is threefold. First, it gives customers access to top brands, or status symbols, at a discount. Second, it allows customers to be consumerist and shop frequently without suffering buyer’s remorse. Finally, it allows customers to spend less time shopping.

The core part of the value proposition is the rental of dresses. The customer who invests in a monthly subscription gets to wear dresses that are valued at more than 10x the value of the subscription. For example, a monthly subscription of $150 allows four $500 dresses to be rented at once. The customer saves significantly on the purchase price by renting.

This works because novelty is a key aspect of female fashion (witness the success of Zara which has focused on the fast production and distribution of clothing lines within a season) and items will often be only worn a few times before their value to the user decreases dramatically. Unlike a house which has a continuing and consistent value, a dress has a significantly shorter half-life.

For RTR this is exploited so that instead of an item being worm 3 – 5 times over 3 months (a 3% utilisation rate) the item is rented 150 times a year (41% utilisation rate – or 60% once weekends are excluded). RTR makes its margin by exploiting the arbitrage between these two utilisation rates.

Buyers Remorse

Buyer’s remorse is a key issue in consumer purchases, especially for big-ticket items. Consumers consider the opportunity cost of the purchase once the dopamine hit of the purchase decision has subsided and frequently regret their decision especially for big-ticket items like expensive dresses.

What RTR does is to make the buyer’s remorse irrelevant. It does this by reducing the cost and psychological impact of any decision. Decisions made with a subscription have already been paid for. They are also not permanent because the dress will be returned. As a result, ‘buying’ becomes far easier once these objections are removed.

[It’s worth noting that Amazon handles buyer’s remorse in quite a different way – it makes it really easy to return items]

Finally, because the financial and ownership consequences of the decision are reduced significantly customers must invest far less time in making the decision. If the decision is wrong the cost is several tens of dollars. It is not hundreds or thousands of dollars. This enables impulse decision making with confidence. As a result, customers of RTR can make significant time savings – up to 68% of customers claim that they shop less as a result.

This also helps RTR disrupt the traditional B2C shopping process. Because the decision has far less cost and consequence it is likely that the user journey from item to completed purchase is far faster than for traditional eCommerce stores or traditional retailers. The abandonment rate is likely to be lower as well.

Marketing & Distribution Channels

Rent the Runway is primarily an internet-based operation. Most rentals take place via its website. This is also the first place that customers interact with it. It also has a smartphone app and five stores. These are in the big coastal cities – where there are dense populations of its affluent customers. Whilst these stores are expensive they act as both brand ambassadors and market expanders for women who are not confident ordering online. They only serve a fraction of RTR’s 6 million customers.

Word of mouth and PR are the other major marketing channels.

Customer Relations

If you look at RTR’s website there is no ability to interact with the company via email, phone or chat. You can go to a shop or you can make an order. Customer service is limited to customers with orders or subscriptions. The low-cost insurance that RTR offers is a way of driving down the number of customer interactions enabling this to be a very low-cost part of the operation.

This provides an advantage against traditional and e-commerce retailers who have to invest significantly more in staff to handle customer service because choices and responses are far less constrained.

Revenue

The RTR business model has three revenue streams

Rental
Insurance & late charges
Sale of dresses

The major revenue streams for RTR the rental of dresses. These are either done on a piecemeal basis or part of a subscription package. The date rental is more seasonal – peaking at times of the year such as Christmas and Eid when people dress up more. In contrast, the subscription model provides steady cash flow throughout the year, allowing greater stock levels to be carried.

RTR also offers insurance and charges late fees. Whilst these generate cash they are part of RTR’s process design. What they do is influence customer behaviour to increase operational efficiency. The insurance charge means that almost no time must be spent in the discussion if clothing is damaged. That reduces the number of Customer Service agents and decreases the conflict that could reduce retention rates, thus increasing the lifetime value of the customer.

Finally, old dresses are sold off. Any sale at this point will be pure profit as the rental will have covered the purchase and operational costs several times over.

Key Resources

The key resources that RTR has are its stock and the services that let it refurbish dress and get them back out to customers as quickly as possible. As a result, it has invested significantly in dry cleaning and in-house refurbishment to maximise utilisation rates. However, it has taken the decision to outsource its logistics to UPS an area where the company has decided not to build a core competence.

Key Activities

Whilst customer service and platform development are important the key activity in the business model that RTR undertakes is sourcing the clothes that it will offer. These need to be both attractive and robust enough to keep looking good after multiple short-term rentals. The first activity maximizes conversions on the website, whilst the second maximizes the ROI on the investment in the item.

Key Partners

RTR’s key partners are UPS which provides all the logistics. By using a single partner RTR is able to build a robust process that limits the time that SKUs are in transit and thus not available for rental. It also has partnerships with hundreds of fashion brands. Whist, it’s purchasing power gives it advantage suppliers also get a much wider brand presence in key markets which results in increased awareness and possibly sales.

Costs in the RTR Business MOdel

The largest costs in the business will be the inventory purchase and its maintenance. At $10 per item at retail rates, almost 30% of the top subscription package’ revenue could be eaten up before other variable costs are considered. With sales now at $100 million platform development is unlikely to be a significant cost though there will be ongoing efforts to resolve legacy code.

August 23, 2018 By Denis Oakley

Disruption and Modern Business

In this video I talk about disruption and its impact on modern business with examples from my own consulting experience and all over the world.

It’s a good introduction as to why disruption is a threat to every business, what forms of disruption there are and some ways of changing your business so that they are less of a threat.

If you are interested in this you can find more statistics in my infographic – here and a worksheet to help you identify if your business is being disrupted here

June 18, 2018 By Denis Oakley

How You Can Use Business Models to Become More Competitive

The business model canvas is a great tool for helping you to develop your competitive advantage. I’ve used it for several companies to help them become more competitive. The secret, and I’ll say this right up front, is to sketch your business out in the business model canvas and then think imaginatively how you can change it. As you see how you business can work differently you see lots of paths to becoming more competitive. Of course if you don’t do anything you’ll stay exactly where you are. I’ll take you through the steps to becoming more competitive one at a time.

Draft Your Business Model Canvas

I’ve drawn out hundreds of business model canvases. A first draft will normally take a few minutes. The process is described in detail in my free business model canvas course. For what we are trying to do here the aim is not detail. You are not trying to get the canvas accurate to the nth degree.

What you are trying to do is to see the business in it’s broad outline. For most companies that means 1 – 3 components in each of the 9 parts of the business model canvas (customers, value proposition, relationships, channels, activities, resources, partnerships,costs and revenue). Go with your gut about what is important and don’t over think it at this stage.

Play What If

The next step is a game of what if. For each of the 9 business model canvas segments ask yourself “What if this was different?”

What if I had different customers? Who would they be?
If I offered a different value proposition to my customers what do they need? What would they buy? Would it solve the same pain?
Can I reduce the cost of my customer relationships? What would the impact of that be? If I doubled my spending on supporting my customers how would that change my business?
If my three biggest channels stopped working (random act of God, legal change or whatever takes your fancy) how would I get new customers? Could I grow my business only through referrals? How would I do that?
What do I need to do to double the average sale price?
Are there any key resources can I do without? What additional key resource could I add that would transform the value that I provide to customers?
Are my key activities all really necessary? Which activities can be outsourced? How would my business change if I really improved the people delivering several key activities so that they were the best in the world?
What happens if my industry changes and one or more key partners stop existing? Who would I really love as a partner? What do I do now that a partner could do better?
How could I reduce my costs by 30%? If I increased my costs by 50% how much additional value could I provide and would customers pay for it?

Asking these questions lets you see different versions of reality. Many will lead to failure. You don’t care about those. What you are looking for is the right question and answer that sets you on the path to become more competitive

Make or Buy?

When we start out in business we make lots of make or buy decisions. Do we custom code the whole website or do we use WordPress with an off the shelf theme?

A make decision is when we create a key resource through our own actions. A buy decision is when we rent or buy the key resource from someone else.

In the space industry Nasa buys in its space rockets and shuttles from third parties (or used to when it did spaceflight). Space X by contrast has decided to build, own and operate its own spacecraft.

In the early 2000’s many companies decided to rent their call centres from companies operating in India and the Philippines. That was a buy decision. Now many have moved back to building their own competency and skills in running them themselves.

Every company has it’s own approach on how to become more competitive. There is no perfect make and buy blend. What works is what delivers comparative advantage.

You may have a philosophical position here that outsourcing is always wrong (Uber outsources taxis and driving to its drivers to reduce the amount of capital it requires). That is not the point with this exercise. The point is to imagine it and to see what you could do differently. Seeing new possibilities is the first step to becoming more competitive.

Competitive Comparison

The final approach is to get a list of your top five competitors. I’m sure you know how they work already but take a few minutes and go over their website, their sales collateral and and news reports about them. Then draw a business model canvas for each of them. Whilst you do it don’t think too much about your business – though I’m sure lots of things will start popping into your head as you do it.

Then lay out all six business model canvases side by side (yours included) and start looking for opportunities were you can break their business model. Do they rely on cheap resources? What does that mean for the rest of the business? Are they able to deliver as good a value proposition? Is their customer support of lower quality? Do they pay more to acquire customers as a result? Knowing this what can you do to disrupt this?

Competitors when you look at them like this cease to be monolithic and decompose into sets of linkages that you can attack and disrupt. One of of the weaknesses of Google’s business model is that it depends on free information from every website (including this one) giving it the raw data that it uses to return search results.

Become More Competitive

Step back now and look at what you have learnt.

You will have learnt that:

There are lots of things that you could do differently
You made choices early on about your cost base that you have never really revisited
Your competitors have many weaknesses in their business models that you can exploit.

Now draw one of more new business model canvases that synthesise all this information and you’ll start to see new strategic approaches. It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to change overnight. Out of all this it will be a lot clearer how to chart the way forward. That becomes the basis for your new business strategy. You will be able to become more competitive as a result.

Will it work immediately?

Of course not! Everything else has remained the same. All that has changed is the way that you see the world. You now need to go out and test what you have discovered and see how it holds up in meetings with your key staff. You need to test it on customers and suppliers. Then you need to make the changes to actually implement it and deliver value. If you want to become more competitive the first step is reframing the world. Then you repurpose your business.

This also works for startups and larger businesses when they have to pivot.

June 11, 2018 By Denis Oakley

Two Types of Strategy: Attrition and Guile

There are two types of strategy. You can have strategies of attrition. You can have strategies of guile. There really aren’t any other approaches. This really simple distinction helps to bring clarity to many business decisions – especially when you think about your marketing strategy and competitive positioning.

Attrition as Strategy

The first type of strategy is Attrition. This goes under a large number of names. It can be brute force, frontal attack, advantage in numbers, overwhelming strength. The core idea is that you have more X than your opponent and you can use it to overwhelm him.

This could be money, time, manpower, market position or reputation. Let’s have a look at each of those in turn.

Examples of Attritional Strategies

Google has a strategy of attrition to its competitors, or rather the small startups who could be its competitors. It buys them. If may do something with them or it may not. It’s wall of money means that it is easier to take an offer and give up than fight against a company that can deploy billions to outcompete you.

In 1812 the Russian empire used time against Napoleon. With nowhere to helter from the Russian winter and no supplies Napoleon needed to reach a place of safety to survive. The whole strategy devised by Kutusov was designed to use time against Napoleon so that General Winter could cause massive human and morale damage.

Market position can also be used as a strategy of attrition. As a market leader you can trade market share to protect your revenues, force a competitor to over expand or overpay for customers. Many FMCG companies, such as Procter and Gamble, use this strategy with cash cows as part of their portfolio management technique.

The use of manpower as an attritional strategy is often associated with the Great War and particularly with the Battle of the Somme. It’s also a facet of many political campaigns. Both Barack Obama and Tony Blair used an attritional strategy with millions of supporters in the campaigns outpacing the opposition at a grassroots level.

Reputation is also a source of strategic power. The Pope used his reputation to generate money from the sale of indulgences to pay for St Peters. In more modern times we see people in authorities positions using their reputation to achieve their own goals. Elon Musk has used his reputation to finance Tesla motors. With car production low (in June 2018) that reputation is at risk if he does not deliver and needs to raise more capital at disadvantageous terms.

Guile as Strategy

The second of the two types of strategy is guile. This is looking at your enemy and thinking.

I am going to get too badly hurt if I go mano a mano with him. I need to do something different.

So a strategy based on guile, or cleverness avoids the direct approach and looks to find a way of achieving the same objectives without overwhelming the enemy. Make no bones about it though – the enemy, or competitor, is intended to end up face down on the ground.

Odysseus is the poster boy for this approach to strategy with the big wooden horse in the Trojan War. Sun Tzu in the Art of War put it another way –

Be Like water

and

When the enemy advances retreat. When the enemy retreats advance,

Examples of Guile as Strategy

Some good examples to using guile include word of mouth, viral marketing and straight out disruption

Word of mouth is the classic guile tactic. Here you focus on showing customers that you care. Tony Hsieh did this at Zappos with a total focus on delivering an amazing customer experience. He did not go head to head with the existing shoe brands but instead built an experience that made people want to buy shoes from him. Delivering Happiness is a great read.

Both Dropbox and Gmail used Viral marketing to avoid having to spend billions of dollars acquiring customers. In each case they offered something that was essentially free – a free product subsidised by advertising for gmail – and – a freemium service with a few paying users supporting a basic free service for dropbox. Users were encouraged to give the ‘free gift’ to their friends and because it was so good the CAC (cost of customer acquisition) was incredibly low compared to paid acquisition.

Disruption is another form of guile. Marc Benioff realised that he could not go head to head with Oracle or SAP in CRM. They both had a huge installed base of users and could throw a wall of money at any direct attack that Salesforce made. Instead he changed the game and said

No more Software

With that reframing of the enterprise CRM market into Dinosaurs and Salesforce he disrupted the market and made many of Oracle and SAPs competitive advantages liabilities instead.

What Type of Strategy to Use

Guile as strategy is normally the only type a startup should EVER consider using.

Startups are constrained by limited resources. If not they should often be as the story of Samuel Langley and the Wright brothers shows. The startup is faced with a world where it is challenging large incumbents who have far more of every conceivable resource than they do.

Going head to head is like me fighting a gorilla. It may make an awesome three second gif but it doesn’t have a happy ending. Entrepreneurs have to look for smart ways to achieve their strategic goals. The more known those ways are, the more often that they will be attritional. An example is Facebook advertising. Five years ago it was a cheap way to buy an audience. Now with so much advertising money switching to digital when you buy attention you are competing with the world’s largest brands. Can you win? This is the whole premise of growth hacking

However there are exceptions. If you are in a new category, you have traction, funding and are in land grab mode you go full out. A good example of this is the ride sharing war between 2012 and 2016 with Uber, Lyft, Grab and Didi Chuxing all spending billions to build market share and establish a strong position before they got swamped by new entrants.

How are the Two Types of Strategy Useful to Entrepreneurs

For entrepreneurs a guile based strategy is almost always the best of the two types of strategy. The quick test that you have to ask is

Who else is doing this?

and

Do they have more money than me?

(Swap money in the above for any other relevant resource)

If an incumbent is using a similar approach, content or marketing channels then the conclusion is that you should really be looking at doing something else.

Use an attritional strategy when your competition is weak.

Use a guile based strategy when you have limited resources and cannot afford to lose.

If you’d like help discovering the best strategy to use do reach out and book a free call – alternatively do signup to my newsletter so that you never miss my strategic insights.

May 21, 2018 By Denis Oakley

What is Strategy?

There have been many answers to the question “What is Strategy?” over the years. If you ask a soldier, a politician, a revolutionary and a businessman you will get a different answer and a totally different set of methods that you can use.

What is Strategy?

A soldier will answer the question “What is strategy?” He will refer to maps, campaigns, enemy concentrations and have a preference for battles of annihilation or manoeuvre.

Politicians answer questions of “What is strategy?” with reference to ideology, party, campaigns and the will of the people. Revolutionaries quote Marx, Lenin and dialectical materialism.

A businessman when asked “What is strategy?” will report memories of Porter, Hamel, Drucker and Peters. He may also complain that many strategies deliver poor, minimal or unexpected results driven by management fads.

Each of these has some truth. Most strategies will be locally dependent. They will be fixed by context and time to have little or no relevance, except as inspiration to those who follow after.

Strategy is How to Get Power

A better approach is to define strategy as:

Strategy is how to get power

This is a simple and easy to understand definition. Soldiers want power over their enemies, the enemy country, its people and its government. Politicians want something similar and power over their own people and politician opponents. Revolutionaries want power over the old order. Businessmen want control over money and the means of production.

Power Has Different Meanings

Every group sees power differently. Power is strongly associated with what the group sees as important. The Spanish conquistadors saw God as a source of power. The Aztecs did not. Both saw blood as a source of power. The one i human sacrifices. The other in a metaphorical sacrifice.

Power is measured in dollars, sex appeal, control over people, territory and resources, status and sales.

Power is Not Trivial

This strategic power is not trivial. It is not about the power of a toddler who screams his rage and frustration to compel his mother’s compliance.

Strategy happens when it is worthwhile expending considerable effort to determine the outcomes of decisions or actions.

The toddler, in the above example, does not weigh the benefits of screaming vs non-screaming before he lets rip. Similarly its rare to have a strategy on whether to pay for car parking. The effort required normally significantly outweighs the benefits of achieving a state of power

Why is this relevant to businessmen and women? Normally we don’t think of business in terms of power relationships. We think about how to achieve sales. We talk about how to make a campaign successful. These are limited goals. Robert Greene is clear in his book “The 48 Laws of Power” that people shy away from considering what they do as an expression of power.

Strategy Help You Get More Power

This means that many businesses leave much of it on the table.

Strategy helps businesses to get more power.

Power in that case comes from other businesses – when you are entering a crowded and competitive market. When you are entering a market with a new product category, creating the market, power comes from consumers.

Strategy is the process of discovering how you can transfer power from others to you. It’s not a zero sum game.

“What is strategy?” Is the question that you have to ask first. The next question is “What is my strategy?” And that is where I can help you. Set up an appointment for an initial consultation to start discovering how you can maximise your power.

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CodeSprouts

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Eccountability

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Perspecto

Cared about the details of his product

Denis did a really nice job and was a pleasure to work with. He took his time to understand the product, gave a good analysis and perspective and cared about the details of his product. Great to work with . Happy to recommend

Florida Gator

Can not stress how great it was working with Denis

Can not stress how great it was working with Denis. His honesty and feedback really challenged some of my preconceived notions about my idea…and it only made it better. Look forward to picking your brain again!

E Mukoro

The man delivers

The man delivers what he says.

Wormyx

Denis was fantastic

Denis was fantastic and offered some fine insights into how to structure and organize my vision. I would recommend his services to anyone looking for some assistance in building their business plan.

T Languy

Really Enlightening

Found the process really enlightening, and intrigued to take the next steps

Petrolia

thoughtful and thorough approach

I appreciated the thoughtful and thorough approach Denis has to creating these business models. I feel like I’ve learned a lot and gotten a good start on the plan, which will be easy to add to.

Julie Hafer

So much passion in his analysis

So much passion in his analysis, very professional and responsive which are great recipes of a good working business relationship, and would def continue to work with him

Siyar

Moja

Fantastic work!

Fantastic work! Went above and beyond what I expected! Thanks!

Papa Colken

Denis has been a tremendous help!

He’s extremely knowledgeable across key areas of building a business, which allowed him to see, explain and guide me through a “glass ceiling” the business was coming up against.

I didn’t have the experience to fully understand the problem beforehand, but Denis helped clarify it to me and provided actionable steps to gather data and analyse it. To help me make the best decision with the full information.

Thank you very much Denis, I really appreciate your time and expertise with this.

Dan Dass

Reecoil Pty Ltd

Denis failed to deliver on time!

Cancelled order. Denis failed to deliver on time!

Bob C

This is phenomenal

Denis, you are the man. This is phenomenal. I do need to pick your brain. I am a certified life coach, NLP practitioner and a platform presenter and have been looking for ways to launch my speaking career for years and now I have the tools.What is the next step from here? wow. I am grateful to have met you.

Gary B

Denis is very professional

Denis is very professional, will take his advise into action. Definitely will recommend his gig.

Michael Deryck

He provides clear guidance and recommendation where we can improve

Denis is an energetic person and help us to address the challenges as well as exploring existing opportunities. He has the ability to communicate effectively and took the time to understand our current business model. He provides clear guidance and recommendation where we can improve and list down all action list that we can focus on in the coming weeks. Overall I am satisfied and valued his work

Jon Edward Santilan

Denarii Cash

Very knowledgeable

Very knowledgeable, provided expert advice and guidance

Daniel Podvesker

Purpl

Awesome!

Awesome! Outstanding experience – Thanks so much!

Renee Esteban

Good Job

Jeleva

Dennis is brilliantly insightful

Dennis is brilliantly insightful. He dedicated his ingenious skills and attention to this project not hesitating to criticize its weak points and make a reshape to the model accordingly. Wonderful job.

Dave I

Clarifying my ideas and thoughts

Denis helped me the most in clarifying my ideas and thoughts to be more focused and strategic. He identified key things from what I’ve shared and consulted me to act on them better. I also really thankful for his insights on Business Model Canvas and his feedback for my humble idea. At first, I was quite unsure how to talk with him as this was my first time consulting him but he was unexpectedly very helpful. If you are looking to get some help in maneuvering your seas of idea or work on your BMC, Denis should definitely be on your list

Nursahfira Noh

The Business Model was great and gave me choices

The best service ever. Great Communication during the process. The Business Model was great and gave me choices. I will recommend to other friends.

Intensemag

Denis’s consistently focused on the key elements of the business

Denis steered the company from a struggling enterprise to a thriving player. The company had tricky relationships both on the supplier-side and internally and internal processes which were very labour intensive and time consuming. Growth required a clear core-market focus, the careful establishment of key alliances and the automation of internal delivery processes. Denis’s consistent focus on the key elements of the business has left it on a sure footing for yet more growth.

Ian Home

Coach to Executives

Very good work indeed

Very good work indeed. I highly recommend. Thank you very much Denis. 🙂

IBS Scandinavia

Denis Cuts Through Confusion

Denis cuts through confusion and identifies significant issues. His input is practical and always useful. I consider him an invaluable part of my team.

Jay Gitomer

Machines & Words

Denis Improved our Performance in Almost Every Respect

Denis took over management of Oakley Steel in 2012. He made a lot of changes to the business and these improved our performance in almost every respect. More leads meant more sales. Better focus meant more sales and lower costs. Process improvements cut time, wastage and errors. The productivity gains were immense.

He’s really good to work with because he’s hugely optimistic, has loads of energy and his passion for whatever he’s doing shines through. Amazing!

Senay Oakley

Oakley Steel

thank you for such great work 🙂

Ahmed Zawia

Denis delivers what I need.

Amazing work. Denis delivers what I need. Denis did go into specific details and recommend relevant solutions. He has knowledge about the domain. Thanks!

Ken Goon

Very helpful and knowledgeable

Very helpful and knowledgeable about what you don’t know. Willing to help beyond the gig is amazing. I recommend to anyone looking to build out their model, to choose Denis.

T Mapham

Denis is definitely an out-of-the-box thinker and very results oriented

Have known Denis for over 2 years now and have seen him work with reputable startups from different industries and suffice to say since his involvement, they have all achieved huge successes. We’ve discussed how we could improve day-to-day operations, sales strategies and even online reputation management over at my own company, MyBump Media — and received unique and priceless take-aways from our discussions. Denis is definitely an out-of-the-box thinker and very results oriented.

Dhanish Athif

MyBump Media

Denis’ Advice and Help was Spot on

I was expecting him to give a more general help in our first conversation, but after viewing our business canvas, and asking a few questions to clarify some parts, his advice and help was spot on, 100% custom made for us. I took a lot out of our hour long conversation, and implemented some things immediately, and I could already see a huge difference in how people perceived us, and interacted with our brand. I appreciate his time and he’s a wonderful mentor.

Rotimi Ore

Chanic

Merci beaucoup pour votre professionnalisme

Merci beaucoup pour votre professionnalisme très bonne communication. Bon courage

Shiva Aulnay

brilliant good write

brilliant good write understood the info i gave him well

Adam Jennings

One of the people that I met that hits u with a reality check

One of the people that I met that hits u with a reality check and also guides through the steps on how to succeed. Looking forward to the 2nd part of the model

S Moohsam

Great insight recommended for every start up

Great insight recommended for every start up. Will use again in the future.

Rivercross

So much value don’t know where to start

Fantastic! So much value don’t know where to start… but start I will! Thank you

Jade K

I believe he desires for AAA

Denis is a knowledgeable person with a professional mind. I believe he desires for AAA….highly recommend!

Bobo Thai

It’s very inspiring to talk to Denis

It’s very inspiring to talk to Denis and bounce ideas with him. Can absolutely recommend.

Toby Ornott

Very professional and efficient!

Very professional and efficient! Highly recommend Denis. Look forward to doing further work. Thanks Rose

Rose

This is a MUST buy review

Denis really did a bang up job on this project. He hit points that were exact to the model I am working on. If you want to start your business on the right foot, this is a MUST buy gig. Thank you Denis!!!!

Tone L

I was impressed with his ability to understand the business and market, quickly

Denis has a strong ability to breakdown problems to surface the core drivers that are limiting business. I was impressed with his ability to understand the business and market, quickly. His recommendations were very strong and ones that I will be acting on.

Pete Ryan

What a brilliant gig and what a brilliant mind

What a brilliant gig and what a brilliant mind. Thank you so much Denis, this is a great start, I’m sure you encourage and help a lot of new entrepreneurs in their first steps. Thank you so much indeed.

Maria Bakalakou

Great for the investment.

Very flexible, opened and great service. Added value on work he delivered. Great for the investment.

Lorena Roqueni

Delivered and left me with a lot to think about. .

Delivered and left me with a lot to think about. Thanks.

Fusesix

Denis has been a great coach / mentor

Denis has been a great coach / mentor in our early stage startup journey to growth. He asked a lot of questions that helped us think through important decisions and gave us pointed advice relevant to our very particular industry and company stage. In a sea of generic startup advice, his attention to details and highly targeted counsel is invaluable

Mathieu Guerville

Relativity

He is a broad thinker and strong on initiative to drive results.

Denis was able to motivate a diverse group of people to create a business resilience plan for a large complex division. This was despite a great deal of change taking place at the same time. He is a broad thinker and strong on initiative to drive results.

Stephen Beck

E.On

Very useful and enlightening experience

Very useful and enlightening experience. I’m sure I will keep referring to the analysis Denis has written for a good while as I properly identify my target audience etc. Highly recommend this gig, very thorough work

Ed Spilster

Denis is very professional

Denis is very professional and did a great job for me. If you need a good business analysis and model, he’s the right choice

Nave Rachman

CLARITY!

The one thing Denis provides. CLARITY!

Robert Nganga

Great result,

Great result, looking into a next cooperation !

Kaien Shen

excellent quality business plan canvas!

Matt Kelly

Denis was quick to understand our product and market

Being a deep-tech startup, we often struggle finding mentors that understand our market and problems. Denis was quick to understand our product and market, and identified risk areas which we were oblivious to.

In a short span of an hour, Denis highlighted our key challenges, provided actionable and practical solutions, and a proposed action plan. Thanks for your invaluable advice

Katherine Kan

Very experienced and easy to communicate with

Very experienced and easy to communicate with, I love it when he uses his similar past experience with local entrepreneurs to guide me

Chang Ser Liang

It gave me a lot of insight.

This was great. It gave me a lot of insight. I would buy this again just to talk with him more to get this idea hammered down. I recommend 1 million times over.

Lamar Lawson

Denis is an archetypal ‘out of the box’ thinker

Denis is an archetypal ‘out of the box’ thinker – in fact he is never in the box. Give him a tried and tested way of doing things that everyone uses, and he will come up with something new – and better! Ask him a question, and he will start by telling you the question you really should have asked. His energy is seemingly limitless, but he doesn’t waste it and is ruthlessly focused on what he is really trying to achieve. I would recommend Denis to anyone as a trustworthy, hardworking and inspirational business partner.

Philippa Tebby

Grant Thornton

Denis is fantastic!

Denis is fantastic! Above and beyond what I expected. Especially regarding his analysis.

Brad Hallberg

I’m very pleased with the model

I’m very pleased with the model that was created for me.My requirements and revisions were well taken to create the model that I’m very happy with.

VMWork

Wonderful Seller

Wonderful seller delivered a 5* job will definitely do more with you thank my friend

Nkem

I edited a few of the notes

Thank you! I edited a few of the notes but other than that it was good! thankyou!

Justin P

The professional service was just as described

Rapid response! The professional service was just as described. I will be purchasing more of your gigs. Excellent value for money!

The Sixth Sense

Fantastic to work with

Fantastic to work with; very direct, honest and easy to communicate with.

Tom Ryan

I’ll delightfully come back for more

This is my second review with Denis. Again I enjoyed every bit of insightful advice and idea re-make. Denis dedicated his talents and himself whole fully and upgraded the concept accordingly. I’ll delightfully come back for more. Amazing Job.

Dave I

Knowledge & professionalism shown by Denis

Didn’t know what to expect going into this gig, but interaction, knowledge & professionalism shown by Denis from the time I placed the order to the time he delivered the completed gig has been to say the least simply superb. He asked a few questions, got the answers and has helped address my my pain- the value proposition with a biz model canvas.

Erastus

Startup Africa

Awesome job

Awesome job and really fast too! Thank you so much!

Anitta Menon

Excellent and very professional!

Excellent and very professional! Highly recommend. Great focus!

Nina Rossi

I chose the £1 report and it was great

I chose the £1 report and it was great. It helped me see what is required to be a successful entrepreneur. I wish I had more money for the other gigs

Katongo Chisenga

He’s Someone That Can Be Depended On To Step Up and Deliver

Denis has always shown me that he’s a passionate person and because of this and his sensitive and compassionate desire to help others he’s someone that can be depended on to step up and deliver an idea, a complete solution or just some kind words of encouragement that can really work for you. He’s certainly helped me on numerous occasions and I’m sure he can help others in a similar way.

Dave Spence

Livemore Events

Thank you so much for your excellent work

Thank you so much for your excellent work, It is better than expected

Manar

The results of this review were amazing

The results of this review were amazing. They took my information and really created a business model that gave me a great starting point. It also gave me a few areas to focus. Happy Happy Customer. Would definitely recommend and reuse.

Tinybyte

Insightful and clear

Insightful and clear for actionable steps.

Sally Mikhail

Answering my questions thoughtfully

Fantastic communication. From my initial inquiry to order completion, he was on the ball answering my questions thoughtfully. Then when I ordered, his questions that he provided as “requirements” were the right questions. To start anything worthwhile you need to get your hands on the right questions. He has them.

Elazar Weiner

Very quick response and clear advice

Excellent, very, very quick response and clear advice. Will definitely buy again!

Stephan B