The Power of Small by Paul Yanover, Digital Media Consultant, Formerly Executive Vice-President Disney Online, Walt Disney Company

When the first Internet bubble was starting to really cook, I decided it was time to exit corporate America and try my hand at starting a business.  Armed with a partner, an idea and some capital we dove headfirst into creating a technology company combining an online destination, internet connectivity and digital photography.  Voila, the connected digital picture frame was born.

At the time, we didn’t know how to create a piece of consumer electronics, had no experience in any kind of retail sales and little more than a hobbyist’s love of photography.  With a team of six people we turned our idea and imagination into a finished product – a consumer online destination, an innovative consumer electronics device in a box and our first retail partner, Amazon.com.  All, in about seven months.

More than anything it was due to two powerful forces:  First, it was the power of a small team that actually allowed us to get more done, more quickly with tremendous productivity.  Second, what we didn’t know actually helped us – along the way many people with greater experience told us we could not build and distribute a new consumer electronics device in anywhere near the timeframe we did.  But, being so new to the space, we were unencumbered by the conventions of the industry and its culture.

I learned the tremendous power of small teams, unencumbered by the wrong kind of knowledge and directed by the right kind of knowledge, with focus and purpose can make the biggest impact; whether in a large corporation or a fresh start-up the power of small and free can accomplish a great deal.

I returned to corporate America sometime after this experience and found the same power could be tapped into even in a large organization.  Success hinged more on identifying the handful of people who could be stirred to harness their passion and energy than marshalling whole organizations with process and procedure.  Over a series of positions at the Walt Disney Company, I had the opportunity to inject change into the company and it almost always came down to leveraging the impact of a small group no matter the size of the actual organization I was a part of or running.

At Disney Online, I had been on the job a few weeks when I was charged with a total re-launch of Disney.com.  Our timeframe was six months from go.  The task was daunting, remake a sprawling website that represented the front door of a huge brand, integrated with multiple large businesses around the Walt Disney Company (movies, television, parks, consumer products, etc…).   We launched the site in seven months (pretty close) and we did it with a very small core team.

Though it may seem trite and even corny – I think the best approach is to be small and think big.

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