The CENTS Business Commandments for Entrepreneurs

[MJ DeMarco]

@MJ DeMarco did you facepalm at all when you realized N-E-C-S-T could be CENTS. On my first read through of TMF some 11 years ago I never put it together that it could be CENTS either, or was it purposeful?

No, it was a brain fart. Yes, I facepalmed myself. I originally started with N(EED) because it was the most important.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[business224]

The hot shot agents who make millions tend to be brokers with large organizations and foot soldiers doing the showing, selling, etc.

On the CENTS scale, a standalone RE agent doesn't score very well, but is better than most jobs since it offers a better system for wealth creation since income caps are removed (scale), if you sell $50M in homes in one year, safe to say, you probably had a good year.

TIME, it scores poorly unless you go the broker route. ENTRY is poor. NEED is average since the market is full of agents, yet, the agent system of selling real estate is still used and enforced here in the states, but is ripe for disruption.

Thank you for this breakdown. What would you do if you were in my shoes? Should I look for a better boat?

 

[fasdrubal971]

Une combinaison de tout ce qui précède. Certaines choses que l’argent ne peut pas acheter, comme avoir une boîte de réception contenant des e-mails « tu as changé ma vie ». C'est vraiment inspirant de faire une différence et de faire quelque chose avec votre cœur comme priorité plutôt qu'avec votre portefeuille. Parfois, cela ressemble à de la charité parce que je gagnerais beaucoup plus en me concentrant sur autre chose.

View attachment 21644

Cela remonte en grande partie à l’époque où j’avais 20 ans… J’ai écrit le(s) livre(s) que j’aurais aimé avoir à ma disposition.

Je suis nouveau sur ce forum (décembre 2023), j'écris en français parce que je vis dans une île française (Guadeloupe) des caraïbes. Je découvre assez tardivement votre contenu (j'utilise un traducteur intégré à mon navigateur) et j'espère pouvoir faire quelque chose si j'en ai la possibilité car j'ai déjà 49 ans, suis marié, père de 4 enfants et en ce moment je réfléchis fortement à un projet de création d'entreprise. Vu le travail à fournir je me demande si je pourrai un jour y arriver car j'ai l'impresssion que je ne pourrai plus dégager 6 heures par jour, 6 jours sur 7 pendant 8 ou 10 ans pour réaliser une chose de valeur qui résolve des problèmes ardus !! Déjà ça : --> GradeMyBusinessIdea.com: Accompagnateur numérique (Results)

 

[fasdrubal971]

The Commandment of Scale (centS)

A productocracy’s fifth and final CENTS Commandment within the Fastlane structure is the Commandment of Scale.

Scale instructs that legacy value systems must be replicated through mass or magnitude while making a profitable impact.

The four definitive components are:

1. Legacy value system
2. Replication
3. Mass or magnitude
4. Profitable impact

First, your offering must eventually evolve into a legacy system in accordance with the four prior commandments. A legacy system carries the components of the TIME component, both physicality and detachment.

Second, your LVS must be replicable, or easily copied into multiple units, locations or chains.

Optimally, this replication should extend among hundreds or thousands, if not millions, of units. For instance, software is easily replicated. The same goes for a website service where increased users and traffic extend replication. My forum receives over 100,000 visitor sessions per month. In the ten years I owned my Internet company, I served a multitude of millions. Physical products like this book also offer replicative elements; my printer can print one million books as easily as 10,000. Replication turns one store into twenty, one duplex into a dozen, and hundreds sold to millions.

Third, replication must have either mass or magnitude. Most people think scale automatically equates to mass-market millions or operating in multi-billion market size. However, scale can also be graced through magnitude, or the gravity of your impact. For instance, if you provide housing for twenty families (not mass market), you’ve scaled by magnitude and probably are doing well—housing is a magnitudinal endeavor. Sell ten restaurant franchises for your organic, GMO-free restaurant, and again, brute-force magnitude occurs.

The fourth element in the definition is a profitable impact. The UNSCRIPTED business is about profits, not ten years from now but within your first year. Nowadays, too many businesses are labeled a success by virtue of growth or run rates. Many never make a profit for years and bleed cash like an Instagram playboy. Most start-ups birthed on the tech coast create value and make an impact. The problem is, they don’t make a profitable impact for years.

Amazon is a great example of a company that makes a phenomenal impact but largely hasn’t been profitable. Remember: Selling hundred-dollar bills for fifty bucks isn’t what we want. “Bleeding value” might grow a company fabulously and have VC’s drowning us in term sheets, but that’s not our objective. Let the deep-pocketed sultans of Silicon Valley make those gambles.

Your goal is UNSCRIPTED , which demands profitability now, not later. And if you want to create the next hot start-up reveled on TechCrunch, the better bet is doing it UNSCRIPTED where “F*ck you” opens up more possibilities.

As producers, we are in the business of serving consumers—not few, but many. However, before impacting the masses, we must first impact one—and do so profitably. If you can impact one profitably and your legacy system is replicable, congratulations, you’ve laid a scaling track.

The act of profitably impacting many is where your income (and life) makes quantum leaps. Optimally, your business solution should impact an industry large enough to impact your life. If you have a software solution appealing to hospitals, the appeal of magnitude scale exists. If any business owner could use your product, the appeal of mass scale exists.

The market size constructs the ceiling under which we limit ourselves. If your solution sells for twenty bucks and your target customer is an Internet-savvy octogenarian who owns a Corvette, the market ceiling is at your ankles. How big is that market? You can’t fill a pool with an eyedropper. Olympic swimmers don’t train in bathtubs. Swim in bodies of water large enough to take you somewhere.

Excerpt From: MJ DeMarco. “UNSCRIPTED : Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship.”

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.