I heard a rumor from Blog World on that there are more people on Farmville than Twitter. What is the world coming to? Check out this tweet:
There are more people on Farmville than Twitter?! That’s just wrong! #bwe10
While I share the horror, I have to admit I’ve been bitten by the Farmville-bug. Yes, I am duly embarrassed by this admission. Whatever your feelings about Zynga’s crazy-popular facebook games, Farmville has quite a few parallels to business.
(On the off chance anyone who doesn’t know: Farmville is a game that simulates running a farm with crops, trees and animals. You plow, plant, harvest and care for animals all for various amounts of coins, farm cash and experience points.)
Lets look at the parallels between Farmville and entrepreneurship.
Strategy matters.
Your Farm’s resources are limited, just as your business has limited resources. Do you use your land to grow crops that turn around quickly for small amounts of cash? Or do you invest more time and grow crops that give you more experience points and coins? How do you use your limited time resources in your business? Do you focus on the short term gain or do you invest time in a larger project that will have bigger payoff later?
Help is necessary.
In Farmville, you can unlock more interesting seeds and time saving tools when you have neighbors. When you don’t have neighbors, you have to trade cash for the same benefits. When you are a small business every penny counts. Some problems can be solved by asking for help rather than throwing money at them.
Clutter drains your resources.
In Farmville, you get points for buying stuff. Then that stuff takes up storage space or space that could be used to grow crops. In business, we just buy stuff hoping for pay off. My hard drive is cluttered with information products. All your stuff takes resources to store and maintain. Free up your resources by selling, deleting or throwing out what you don’t need.
Persistance.
When your sick of doing something, do it anyway. Persistence pays off; Farmville gives you more points when for crops you master. In business, you improve income streams when you master new kills.
Find your people.
Hang out where your people are. If you want Farmville neighbors, go to websites where there are Farmville junkies. If you want to sell to knitters, join a knitting circle.
Cash is king.
Spend, but spend wisely. I know some boot-strappers are terrified to part with even a dime, but sometimes you need to spend. People will help you a lot, but there is a time and place to spend. In Farmville you can buy fuel to plow land or take a lot of time to click by hand. In business how valuable is your time? it might make more sense to spend money to outsource than spend time to DIY.
Everyone who tweeted from Blog World about Farmville having more users than twitter was right to be shocked. In spite of the parallels between Farmville and business, Farmville is still the worst time suck since lolcats. If you want to add your thoughts to the conversation, please comment.
