I’m all about the art of the incremental. For one thing, that’s what bootstrapping is and I am inveterate bootstrapper.  I recommend it to you as well.

Entrepreneurs have been doing this for centuries: starting from where they are with what they’ve got and seeing what works.  This is a time- tested process: if you want to start a business you do two things:

1. Analyze the true nature of your unique assets and core competencies to figure out how they can become a basis for a business.

2. Try small, low stakes testing in the actual marketplace to determine what actually works.  Do more of what works and cut the losers. Keep doing low stakes testing and raise the ante on the winners. ( Didn’t I tell you my very successful father insisted I learn to play poker because it was like the game of business?  It’s not about the cards you are dealt but how you place your bets.  You fold on bad cards and quietly build the pot on the sure winning hands.)

As you practice the art of the incremental , you will be learning your business from the ground up and you will soon learn when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.  But, my advice, is to start small and build gradually

Author Diane Helbig has some helpful thoughts on this as well in Keep Your Message Simple | Small Business Trends. She says:

“No doubt you’ve heard the term ‘core competency.’ It refers to that which a company or person does best.

The best way to build a business is to start out offering only what you do best.

Why? For a couple of reasons:

1. It gives you one thing to focus on; to build a marketing message around.
2. It helps you define your target market – those people who need that thing.
3. It helps others land on who you are and what you offer.

In short, it provides clarity. It keeps you and your prospects from getting confused.

Too often small business owners try to offer everything under the sun. They think there’s value in being a one-stop shop and they’re afraid that if they don’t offer more things they’ll miss out on business.

Set yourself up for success by starting out simply. Focus on the thing you do best and market that product or service to that target market. Build your business from the foundation of your core competency.

Once you’ve established your company as a solid entity, you can add products or services and develop a menu of offerings. Be sure to add things that make sense – things that go along with your core product or service.”

How will you know what products or services to offer? Unless your customers have been asking for a particular product or service from you, you probably won’t know.  You will have to rely on small scale testing.  As someone once put it, “Starve the problems; feed the opportunities.”  Or, take a close look, then, as my father would say, “Know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.”

Let us hear from you.  Tell us your start up experiences.  Have you learned “the art of the incremental”?  How did you do it?”

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