Here is another gem from my friend Tom Chi. A little while ago Tom taught one of his amazing classes on rapid prototyping at Singularity University’s Global Solutions Program. In the midst of him explaining the process and running the course, he stepped to the side and taught the class the “30-Second MBA”:
All you need to know about business comes down to two fundamental (and easy) rules:
Step One: Do something that meaningfully improves someone’s life.
Step Two: Make step one cashflow positive.
That is it.
It may sound trivial but is the essence of building a lasting business. Businesses fail (other than for people issues) because they do not find product/market fit (they never create something which meaningfully improves someone’s life) or they cannot make money doing so (they are not cashflow positive).
Two steps. That is all you need to know about the essence of business.