The BrainHeart name is based on many years’ experience of starting and growing new companies, combined with the following model for building successful businesses:
The important factors for building successful companies
We all know that every successful organization must have a good and appealing product or service idea.
However, the product/service idea is not more important than having an efficient business model for how to sell and distribute the product/service, how to earn money from the idea, etc.
However, the combination of product/service idea and business model is not more important than having the right timing. Being too early or too late to the market has killed many good start-up companies.
However, all these three factors combined are not more important to a company’s success than the fourth factor: image. First, customers do not buy the best products – they buy what they believe is the best product/service. Second, especially in the B-to-B market, people only buy from companies that have a credible image – an image of being trustworthy and long lived. Without the right image of the company and of its products/services, it does not matter how good the product is in reality.
However, all these four factors combined are not more important than the people involved – that is, the individuals within the organization, but also their shared spirit. Without a strong and well functioning management team, no excellent product/service idea can succeed. In fact, the reverse often works: a good management team can revitalize a product/service or business model that does not succeed in the marketplace.
This view of the dominant importance of individuals and teams is the essence of the BrainHeart name and its model.
But this model encompasses even more. When you consider what is required from the people who are creating a successful business or a flourishing school, it is both Brainware – the knowledge and experience – and Heartware – the right mental attitude. In our view, the mental attitude – the personal engagement, motivation and energy – is the single most important factor for creating a successful organization and through that a prosperous business or successful non-profit project. Without a positive mental attitude, the value of a person’s or a group’s knowledge and experience is very limited. Unfortunately, in most start-up organizations, one person with a negative attitude can kill the spirit of the whole team and thereby jeopardize the entire business idea.
To sum up the BrainHeart philosophy:
When building or expanding a business, investors, owners and boards normally pay too much attention to the tangible components such as the product/service or business model but too little to the people who are supposed to be creating the success.
When recruiting new employees, management normally pays too much attention to an individual’s history, education and experience and too little to their mental attitude – their spirit, drive and energy.
When considering the mental attitude of employees, managers normally listen too much to the people who have a negative attitude, instead of protecting and encouraging the positive attitude that most employees have or would like to have.