We say it often and we’ve even made it our main credo: Challenge Everything.

Time for a little background about why this fits so well with our mission, which is all about entrepreneurship.

When the first concept for Exvo came into focus, a lot of time was spent on analysing the process of entrepreneurship. Trying to drive through to the core of what it is about, how it works and how we could best structure our added value.

I mean, entrepreneurship is everywhere in our society and it’s woven into the fabric of our culture. Not as much as we would like at Exvo, but stil, it’s there. But why? Where does it come from?

We put it down to human nature. A mix of darwinistic drive, curiosity and pragmatism, which in this process together create value for the individual, and this is key, value for others.

And the process of entrepreneurship always starts with a challenge:

It’s challenging the why, how, what and where.

It’s challenging the status quo.

It’s challenging the way things are done now.

It’s challenging what you think you know.

It’s challenging the limits and the edge.

It’s challenging others.

It’s challenging yourself.

Entrepreneurship is Challenging Everything.

Many people think it’s odd that we think of entrepreneurship as a lifestyle. This is usually because they think of entrepreneurship embodied in a person (entrepreneur) or in an organization (a business) and not as a process.

But it’s the process that matters and not the shape in which it presents itself.

Entrepreneurship transcends the person or organization. Especially in todays’ network economy it’s no longer about ‘a person’ or ‘a business’. It’s more than ever about what you can create together.

And that requires people who live according to certain rules or principles. These principles are the subject of another post, but the point is that entrepreneurship is about the way they choose to live and act. It’s a lifestyle. A lifestyle that any person can embrace and any organization can adopt by finding the right people.

An analysis of an entrepreneurial revolution that just might be ready to hit the world and change the contents of your workday for good, in a very positive way.

Introduction

The long tail of the global markets creates a place for every product of value. And that includes the things that you love to create or do most.

It’s even better; this long tail will allow an entrepreneurial renaissance to take shape, the likes of which we have not seen before.

We believe this will be, such a strong trend, even things like the current credit crisis will not hinder it, let alone stop it. The opportunities will be there for the people who are ready to take them.

So what is this ‘Long Tail’ again?

The long tail is a concept published by Chris Anderson.

The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits” (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-target goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.

This excerpt doesn’t mention it explicitly, but the entire volume in the tail is bigger than the volume of ‘the hits’. (Something the music industry is learning the hard way at the moment).

Derived from the virtual bookstore example, which can store an unlimited number of titles, this theory can also be transposed to the entirety of global markets.

The Realization

So let’s leave the bookstore for now and think of the entire world economy as a whole.

You have a variety of huge volume products (eg. commodities, like oil, grain, energy etc.) and then there’s an enormous tail of smaller volume markets for other products and services.

The same principle that allows authors to sell books in the long tail, allows entrepreneurs and companies to sell to niche markets in the long tail of the global economy. And it’s this tail that’s getting longer and longer.

In other words, it no longer matter what your product is, if it holds value, you can sell it and make a living from it. That is, if you know what you’re doing and know what hurdles to take.

Enter your Passion

That’s a powerful fact!

It actually says: there’s a market for anything of value (and even for some things of no value at all). And that means there’s a market for your passion too!

So with the normal market drivers at work, this will obviously lead to an enormous renaissance of (small) entrepreneurship. People who can make money by doing what they love, will do it and they will spread this to others who will do the same.

Many entrepreneurs are already taking these steps right now and new markets are invented every day.

What still stands in your way and what can you do about it?

There are a number of factors still making it tricky to benefit from this opportunity. The good news is, they are quickly dissolving and giving way to entrepreneurs who have found ways around them!

Market Size & Reach When you sell niche products, the quickest way to grow is to increase the size of the market you work in. So instead of selling to the US only, you start selling to the entire world.

What helps you do this?

• Powerful but cheap website content management systems and e-commerce tools
• Global payment systems, like PayPal

Findability When your clients are very specialized it’s hard to find them. That’s why you should allow them to find you.

What helps you do this?

• Google and other search engines
• Targeted advertising
• Publishing about your niche (blogging etc)
• Purple Cow marketing

Language This is still a big hurdle. If you can’t communicate easily, it’s hard to do business. Fortunately help is on the way!

What helps you do this?

• Exvo ‘Speak the World’ (Translations technology & services – Launch 2008) Yes this is us.
• Computer Translations (not completely there yet, but often good enough)

Scale Not having the right scale to compete with the big players in a a market can also hinder people to make the jump to entrepreneurship. Advantages of scale are the issue here.

What helps deal with this?

• Exvo Open Company. Yes, here we are again, but that is no surprise since it’s our goal to spread entrepreneurship. Open Company is designed to counter these advantages of scale by simply adding structuring to many independent entrepreneurs.
• Social & Business Networks. Groups are like the new unions. Smaller and a always changing configuration.

Machines/Complex Production Complex machinery and production procedures can drag new ideas for niches down. Fortunately technology is quickly filling in the last requirements to democratize this area too.

What helps deal with this?

• 3D Printers. Have you seen 3d printers yet? These developments will blow your mind. Checkout this 3D home printer, which is just the beginning.

When all is said and done

So what does this mean for you?

It means that you should get of your behind and start thinking about what your passion is, how it can offer value to other people and then do it. There never was a better time.

For all of these goes: Exvo is here to help with everything entrepreneurial.

Only one day left in 2007. Time to look back, and when you’re an entrepreneur, time to look forward too.

With entrepreneurship it’s always about the next product, the new project, the latest innovation. It’s about making the jump from what you’ve done and created this year and reaching results in the next.

I love that feeling. Knowing you’ve done all you possibly can to make sure next year is going to rock!

This year was a tough, but very important one for us. We’ve achieved almost every element we need to launch early next year. Just a couple of elements still to fall into place and then we’re ready to go.

Exvo is about bringing freedom and independence through entrepreneurship to as many people as possible. That’s quite a mission, but I think we’ve got a decent shot at making this happen.

Our first product will be aimed at personal and team productivity. After all, entrepreneurship starts with getting things done. I will start a series of posts soon to show you what’s coming.

But how about you? How has your year been?

After a year’s work, what can you look forward to? Have you done enough to believe next year will be your year?

I like technology and coding a lot. It’s fun to come up with something and make try to make it work.

But there’s no way I’m a good enough coder to make changes much bigger than editing some text in HTML, in our operational code, or maybe some CSS. So I don’t touch it. Even though I would like to try to do so and get better at it.

But I don’t. I leave it to the pro’s.

I can’t do it, because that would mean everything in the meantime, until I would reach pro level too, would be mediocre. So I have to restrain myself in order to keep our standards up.

I think this is something that should be considered more often. You can’t do it all, you can’t posses every talent. In order to keep the standards intact you need to be successful, simply leave it to the pro’s.

In other words know thyself and act accordingly, cause it will hurt you.

You have probably seen successful companies out there that for no business reason, have their web presence created by the resident tech-hobbyist. It’s always a huge disappointment and hurts the company’s profile. Don’t fall into this tender trap.

The Exception

There’s one big exception to this rule. When you can’t (afford to) hire or find someone else to do if for you, only then you can settle for your own talents. You have to. Action is better than no action.

Survival comes first, but excellence comes by knowing your strengths and weaknesses.