Singapore Entrepreneurs

Simplicity is an important trait in starting and managing a business. In this article, we are honoured to have our guest contributor, Harold Fock, an established entrepreneur and also the owner of Beyond SG blog, to demonstrate how the power and paradox of simplicity can change the speed and nature of business with 5 simple principles.

The Power and Paradox of Simplicity by Harold Fock

1. Good stuff is simple
I love simplicity. Think for a moment. Do you know all the most popular appliances and gadgets in the world generically have two buttons (once you strip off the bells and whistles)? Let’s start with the television. Why do we have a global obsession with watching TV? Because operating a TV is essentially a two-buttoned operation. The On-Off switch and the Channel Switch. (For women, there is only one switch as only men are avid channel surfer haha.) If a television set requires a downloading of software, a virus remover, a Windows configuration, the world will spend more time reading books and admiring their girlfriends.

Why are PC so pervasive in the homes? The credit does not go to the famous Moore’s Law or Sim Lim Square’s cutthroat pricing. It is the humble but powerful mouse! Office workers, grandmothers and CEOs (in order of descending IQ) will never have figured out something as complex as a DOS prompt. A mouse is another two-button device – the click button and the roller “button” below. Throw in the Radio (on-off and tuning dial), the cellphone (okay, okay, it has more than 2 buttons but if you see 0-9 as a dial…), the fax, the air-con, the blender, the multi-coloured confusing MP3 players versus Apple I-Pod etc… My point is that human beings generally hate complexity and prefer simplicity.

2. Businessmen should make things simple
If there is a default need for simplicity among human beings, then our foremost task as businessmen is to make everything simple.

Have a simple, easy to understand, management target.
Have a business model you can explain within an elevator ride.
Have a commission structure that a non-MBA salesman can comprehend.
Have a product you can brag to your grandmother within a phonecall.
Have an idea that does not require 4 PowerPoint slides to get across. (Fockism here: Most of the time we see PowderPoint – fluffy presentations that have very little impact but since everyone is doing it, we learnt to tolerate nonsense.)

3. How do I start?
But business is, by nature, complex. How do I simplify things? How do I think “simple”? How do I even start? I believe there is a way out. This is my starting point. I call it the 4 Cs Simple Business Model (4CSBM) Since Singaporeans love acronyms, I just made the name up to sound more academic and impressive but the framework is real and useful. Upon introspection, it has served me tremendously in evaluating most businesses over the years. It is my quick and dirty sanity checklist.

4. The 4 Cs Model
The Cs stands for Concept, Customers, Competence and Connectivity.

In the beginning, there is the Concept.

Concept is the underlying logic and reason how you can extract money out of your customers’ pockets. A lot of seasoned businessmen and VCs get irritated when young entrepreneurs talk about visions, mission statements, business development strategies without addressing a simple question – how to earn your buyer’s money? Believe me, I have made such ghastly mistakes before and I still do.

Customers are the folks who buy your Concept first (even before they buy your product).

Competence is the ability to execute and implement the Concept – the real visible work that ultimately satisfies your customers.

Connectivity is the ability of a company to network and obtain various resources to meet your customers’ needs.

Once the basic framework is in place, use the same “Keep Things Simple” mindset and dive down to the tactical level. If you are stuck at any of the Cs, you might not have thought things through.

5. The Paradox of Simplicity
Furthermore, you will be surprised at this paradox - the more you want to be simple, the harder it gets to reach there. You will re-examine your own assumptions. You will re-evaluate the customers’ actual needs. In fact, you may even walk away from a business opportunity because it fails the above litmus test. As my favorite professor in Boston once taught me, “Doing nothing is an option.” In these politically correct, “let a thousand flowers bloom” climate, all ideas are good and should be encouraged – wait till you face the VC. Strip to its core, many business ideas fall apart. These money losing ideas are merely hiding behind the shield of complexity to stay alive. Our role, as entrepreneurs, is to be able to tell the difference. Using simplicity as a filtering mechanism may be a good start.

About Harold Fock: Harold Fock is currently writing in Beyond SG, a new blog which talks about Singapore and our social and business connectivity with the world. It is about what’s happening in Singapore and outside Singapore and how we can thrive and survive in an increasingly flatter world. Our foreign minister, BG George Yeo (MP) has also contributed an entry on global connectivity and friendships in his blog. Prior to this, Harold is an established entrepreneur and was one of the four invited commentators for the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (Singapore) press conference this year (2006) held in NUS.

Harold Fock had spent 7 years as a central banker at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, where he managed the foreign exchange risks of Singapore’s currency reserves, specializing in cash management and Australasia currencies. He was also seconded to The Institute of Banking and Finance where he served as Acting CEO for 1½ years before joining the private sector. Harold has served in several government committees - promoting Internet businesses and fine-tuning cyberspace laws in the National Internet Advisory Committee as well as studying the impact of demographic changes in the Singapore 21 Committee. A business graduate of Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), Harold had been awarded the US William Fulbright Scholarship (Foreign Fulbright Fellows) in 1999 to study electronic-commerce in McCallum Business School in Boston and was accepted at MIT Executive Program on E-Commerce in 2001. He was also a recipient of the Tan Sri Tan Chin Tuan Foundation Scholarship in 1999 and the Hoffman Prize in Business Ethics in 2001. He is currently the CFO & Deputy CEO of a listed technology company and funding advisor to several companies. (sources: his bios in Beyond SG)