Here’s what’s on the menu today

• Adidas - From the washroom to the world’s stage

• Franchising vs Entrepreneurship - Two sides of the same coin

• Finance tip - How did Apple get to have more cash reserves than the US government?

• Deep dive - The secret of Atlassian’s Success

“We started in a washroom and conquered the world. And in between, we’ve scored big and sometimes struggled to reach our goals. We’ve done our best for the best. We’ve improved and grown. Looking ahead to the future, always remembering where we came from.”

I remember having this on my wall. No, I didn’t write this, but I believe it tells the story of every startup out there. Some of you might instantly recognize those words alongside others like “Impossibility is Nothing.” But unlike the three-worded slogan, Adidas’s brief but deep story would sound familiar to every entrepreneur.

If you make all the right moves, you eventually get to that point where you get to say, “I didn’t believe I would get this far.” The question is, how do you go from the washroom to conquering the world? One word, Approach. You can call it strategy and it doesn’t have to be complex. For Adidas, the strategy was Gathering Feedback from their customers.

This may sound like common sense and nearly all businesses collect feedback from their customers. But Adidas excelled at one thing and that’s how well they implemented their strategy. Implementation is what separates great businesses from ordinary ones. It’s like the famous quote that says “A sword is only as good as the one who wields it”. So it is not only about having an elaborate business strategy but how well you implement the strategy.

There are two ways to become a business owner - Franchising or Entrepreneurship. These are two different paths that lead to the same destination but differ in so many ways.

Most people who dream of owning a business often think along the path of entrepreneurship, which is starting a business from scratch. Here you get to remain autonomous and make business decisions as you see fit. You don’t have to follow predefined conditions. However, the autonomy of entrepreneurship comes with no guarantee of success.

Because when building from scratch, there are so many hurdles you must scale through and some lessons you would learn the hard way. Some people make it through to the end while so many fail. But if you are willing to sacrifice your autonomy, you can improve your chances of success exceedingly and the answer is Franchising.

The best way to explain how franchises work is with the popular statement, “If you cannot beat them, join them”. You do this by buying into the franchise of an existing company in your niche and in exchange you are given all the support you need to succeed. The key to success will be handed to you, and you still get to maintain some control over your business.

Franchise is expensive and most entrepreneurs will frown at the idea of being denied the freedom to experiment with new ideas. However, there are those who will welcome the idea of banking on a system that already has a proven success record and still gets to be their own boss. These are the people who stand to benefit most from franchising.

“Apple has more cash than the United States Government”

The California-based tech company once made headlines after its earnings reports showed it had roughly 76 billion dollars in cash. At the time, the US government’s operating cash reserve was 3 billion dollars less. So how did Apple end up with so much cash at its disposal? The simple answer is that it spent less money than it earned.

This is something worth emulating. As a rule of thumb, businesses are expected to have enough cash reserves to cover six months of operation. This will come in handy in the case of an emergency. However many entrepreneurs struggle to build their cash reserves and they soon pay the price for this.

For the most part, building a cash reserve is a matter of financial discipline, and these tips can make it less tedious.

• Set up small regular payments to a designated cash account

• Pay off credit card debt as early as possible to avoid interest buildup

• Cash cheques early and pay off cheques late, but not later than the due date.

• Keep your expenses as low as possible

• Always pay back money into the cash reserve

Be patient but learn to act swiftly

ATLASSIAN is a company you don’t hear a lot about but may be using their products on a daily basis. One of them being Trello. Here is one lesson that helped the founders grow Atlassian from $10,000 in debt to a $48 billion behemoth.

Be patient but learn to act swiftly - should be a slogan for many entrepreneurs. There are two instances when an entrepreneur should act fast, the first is when they realize they’ve made a wrong decision and the second is when a genuine opportunity presents itself.

Wrong decisions are cancerous and if left unchecked would cost the business more in the long run. The problem here is that after steering their resources in the wrong direction for so long, entrepreneurs become vulnerable to the sunk cost effect. They tend to hold on for as long as possible despite all the signs that they should let go and move on.

Acting fast is also important when certain business opportunities present themselves. Such opportunities can be very fleeting and deliberating for too long would be a mistake. Many successful entrepreneurs today are only at the top because they snatched the opportunity when it presented itself and never looked back.

Lastly, patience is a shield against the uncertainties you are bound to encounter in your entrepreneurial journey. Sometimes, even after you’ve made all the right moves, you just have to wait. This can be difficult and you may be tempted to throw in the towel. But remember, the most successful entrepreneurs today didn’t get there by accident but by patiently waiting for the right moment to strike.