Yahoo Finance The Hedgehog Concept: the 3-step plan for any successful business
The New Investors video series brought to you by Yahoo Finance reveals the secrets of the most successful entrepreneurs and business people in Australia today. This is the seventh episode of the season.
If you could be a fox or a hedgehog, which would you rather be?
Ancient Greek poet Archilochus is credited with saying: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing".
In business, it's better to be a hedgehog, according to successful fake tan entrepreneur Shaun Wilson.
He first read about the Hedgehog Concept in a popular book titled Good To Great by Jim Collins, and it's a philosophy he runs his business Bondi Sands through.
"What can your business be great at? Is your team passionate about that? And does that make you money?" he told Yahoo Finance's New Investors.
"If you get those three interrelated circles right, then you should have a successful company."
Why is it called the Hedgehog Concept?
The idea, going back to Archilochus, is that a fox knows how to do many things, like trying to catch a hedgehog. But it is thwarted every time because the hedgehog knows how to do one thing very well – defending itself.
In running a startup, if you can get it to where the three circles converge, then you have success: be the best at something, have a team passionate about it and figure out which channel it's best to make money.
"For us, we want to be great at self tan from a product point of view. We want to be great at digital marketing – especially social," Wilson told Yahoo Finance editor-in-chief Sarah O'Carroll.
"We're very passionate about those two things and ultimately we hoped that would drive our economic engine and give us return in terms of profit."
It's working out okay for Bondi Sands.
The company is now internationally famous on social media with the likes of Kylie Jenner endorsing its self-tan and suncare products and more than 664,000 followers of its own on Instagram.
Be the hedgehog, not the fox.
The New Investors video series brought to you by Yahoo Finance reveals the secrets of the most successful entrepreneurs and business people in Australia today. This is the seventh episode of the season.
