Symptoms: Solution created (product or service) and can’t find a market.

Prescription: Find a business, get your hands dirty and you’ll find enough problems you can solve with a solution.

As I was watching videos of winners from the CMU McGinnis Venture Competition I was amazed at the awesome power of American innovation. The teams are out solving problems, the solution to some I can barely understand.

Despite the doom and gloom in our economy today I know our future is bright because of  the ingenuity of partners from around the world solving basic and complex problems. These problems solver, titans of learning, will rise up new businesses and a new economic vitality will emerge from the ashes of derivatives.

I’ve been following the developments in Saudi Arabia as they look to diversify away from all oil to energy intensive manufacturing and knowledge economy. Their SAIGA is opening up some unique opportunities to foreign investment to be a part of building new cities and expanding their current infrastructure.

I can apply the example of Saudi Arabia in any company. What am I doing to foster innovation – how open am I to the contributions of others? Am I prepared for the next business that will disrupt my current model? (ie. blockbuster vs. netflix) What are my basic assumptions about my business, how safe are those assumptions?

So being an entrepraneur I’m always interested in hearing from those that made it beyond start-up to success. 37Signals plays the role of hero for creating and selling web-based software. In this video one of the founders discusss their philosophy on starting and growing a company.

Start-Up School Video

I resonate with a couple of points – most signifcant, focus on the Fortune 5,000,000 – that is very much our strategy with Worship Relay.

Life without VC’s can be good. You can run a good business without pesky investors and still be successful. There is more to life then being at the office and waiting to enjoy life until the big day is a waste.

Focus on what’s important in the beginng, in my case I have a limited number of hours I can devote to my businesses. However, this keeps me focused on only the most essential tasks to get the business up and running.

We’re wrapping up the first wave of development on our newest product, Worship Relay. Know a worship pastor that could use some help staying organized each week? Drop us a line with the church name and approximate size of the worship team. We’ll be emailing invitations at the end of July/early August.