Do you wonder what is the role of an accountant? Like most every professions there are the accountants you want “on your team” and there are “the rest”
I was recently at a Lean Startup event and they were telling the story of an MBA project taking place in a local university. The group was divided into teams and tasked with designing new products.
One group designed a product they deemed worth about $10. They went out to ask their potential customers for feedback. For those who know about Lean Startup you would recognise this as testing the market with your MVP – minimum viable product.
The team talked to 50 people and were so excited because 46 out of 50 potential clients said “yes” they would pay $10 for their product.
46 x $10 = $460 and they started thinking about how they would spend their money.
Some one asked: “What did the other 4 people say?”
And the team responded “They were losers!” and “Who wants to listen to them?”
The team were instructed to go back and talk to the 4 people who said “no” and find out “why not?”
Well, as it turns out the 4 people who said “no thanks” have some thing else very interesting to say.
2 of the 4 said “If your product just had this one extra feature we would pay 100 time $10 for it” that’s $10 000
Most accountants are trained to see the reality, to see the the certainty of the 46 x $10. This is what accountants do, and this is a good thing!
The Entrepreneur sees the potential in the 2 x $10 000.
There are many reasons why every Startup needs a good accountant and / or a good bookkeeper.
If you want to read more about the difference between Accountant and Bookkeeper:
Free Discussion Paper
This Discussion Paper was recently presented to a panel of Accountants and Bookkeepers