The Business Geek

I saw Blind Side last night. Since I had not heard much hype about this movie, I was a bit surprised that the first showing we attempted was sold out and the theatre was packed for the next showing. After seeing the movie, I get it.

Based on the true story of a wealthy family rescuing a talented football player (Michael Oher, now a promising rookie on the Baltimore Ravens) from the Memphis ghetto, this was certainly a “feel-good” movie, but it seemed more than just that to me.

The underdog has universal appeal in our culture, but this movie was also a reminder that being there for our next generation makes all the difference. The “feel-good” message revolves around the wealthy family taking Michael under their wing, but they never would have found him without the initial efforts of a friend’s father from the same rough side of town (”Big Tony”) who talked the private school where he was discovered into accepting Michael for his potential. These two sets of actions changed to world in a huge way for the people directly involved, and they improved the world in at least a noticeable way for the rest of us.

This got me to thinking about the movie industry as a business. How we watch and hear about movies has evolved, but the basic value proposition of movies is still the same: Provide viewers compelling value, and they will pay for that value. Sure, piracy has probably become much worse in recent years, but great movies continue to bring in huge revenue, and the movie business continues to post record results.

And that’s the real take-away for me: Provide high value, and customers will continue to pay.

I cannot think of a business category more “tired” than fast food–especially hamburgers.

Despite this, Five Guys, a fast-food franchise with a very un-glamorous name and simplistic business model, has managed to re-invent this category.

Starting out about 23 years ago in the Washington DC area, Five Guys now has about 450 locations scattered across the U.S. and (by the looks of their Store Locator map) a bunch in Central America.

I am not especially picky about food, but I generally do not eat hamburgers, and I never go to a fast food joint for a buger–or at least I didn’t until a Five Guys recently opened up in our nearest town.

The burgers and fries are exceptionally good, but I am almost more impressed with the business operation itself. Talk about clarity of focus and disciplined execution! 

Everything–from the simple two-color decorating scheme (red & white), the menu (burgers, fries, soft drinks) and the crew composition (cashier/table washer and mostly cooks)–is optimized to focus on the efficient delivery of great burgers and fries.

There are some useful lessons here for many of us–especially in the technology business:

1. Original ideas are great, but fabulous execution of even an old-school idea trumps originality any day.
2. We don’t need a “great” idea (0riginal or not). Before experiencing Five Guys, Google was my go-to example of this. (It’s easy to forget that when Google was a start-up, about the last thing any of us “needed” was another search engine.)
3. Simplicity is power: It is much easier to execute well with the clarity provided by simplicity.

This all sounds obvious, but I need to keep reminding myself about some of these uncommonly common-sense truths as I ponder my next big thaing.

KO, so does mangling something already hideous make it less bad?

Is this even creative? (A Google search just now resulted in only one other hit; I’ll let you decide whether it is more “impressive” for me to have composed this using my own imagination or by delegating that task to the other author.)

Either way, the point is that creativity is in the eye of the beholder, and not every idea or business concept has to be a category-killer or insanely-great Jobs-esque accomplishment. (Those are really kewl,  but I should not be arguing with myself already.)

The Business Geek gets a bit, um, geeky about business ideas, creativity and especially great execution producing phenomenal results with a simple elegance (which often IS insanely-great).

Depending on your background, this may sound impossible or old-hat. What is really kewl is when it is both.

Check back in to see.