While thinking about web front page design, yesterday Cyber Guru Ross Hill had this to say:
“To find a needle in a haystack, one doesn’t have to burn the haystack, just make sure the needle lies on top of it.
If our people can’t find it. Then quite simply it isn’t there. It doesn’t exist, and they may not return. After all that hard work to get them here, that’d be a real shame.
This is why our homepage designs must rock
You need more industry experience
You need to have experience managing a team
It’s out of my control
We care, we’re listening
We have a sustainable perspective
Our interests are aligned
People are our most important asset
Open plan is for open communication
We have a long term strategy
We serve our shareholders first
We put our customers first
We put our employees first
We have a lot of first places… ?
We make stuff up so we can justify the money we extract from something we don’t own.
Make your startup the antithesis of this – mean what you say.
My problem is…. I’m a really nice guy. Really, I’m reasonably nice, just ask anyone who knows me….
Actually it’s more I’m not as smart as I’d like to think I am. You see, often I don’t do people any favours by trying at all costs to be, Mr Nice Guy. Even if it’s at the expense of helping them grow. The interesting thing is that I usually get what I give, and that is, people are generally very nice to me. Even if what I need on occassions, is some home truths to help me grow.
What I really need is tough love.
Turns out my team also need some tough love too.
Tough Love – Startup blog definition:
Having a team let each other know ‘in no uncertain terms’ when members are goofing off, at the expense of agreed upon and shared objectives.
It doesn’t mean we turn into nightmare colleagues or the boss we always hated.
It means that we have a culture where we don’t want to let each other down, but we pull each other up in tough times and provide mutual motivation. We give each other guidance when we need it.
Photo by Chuck Rogers
Words by Steve – rentoid.com
I often get asked the following question: “If you had to give one piece of advice for entrepreneurs what would it be?”
Here’s my answer:
Revenue must exceed expenditure.
The more it exceeds it by, the better.
I like doing cool stuff as much as the next guy, and no I wouldn’t sell tobacco to kids in Africa to make money. But it becomes really hard to do cool stuff if your business doesn’t survive.
Fly in airplane 
Drive car
Ride bicycle
Swim
Walk
Run
Motorbike
Bus
(insert your choice here)
Which one is correct? Well, it depends on a lot of things, like speed, budget and even why you are going…. Are you walking to Sydney on fitness or political campaign?
It’s easy in to judge strategy from the sidelines, especially when we don’t understand the constraints or objectives.
In startup land our paths will differ. What matters is if we get to Sydney, and if we did it in the manner which suited us.
Steve – rentoid.com
I took this pic of this shop front / side in my local neighbourhood. It’s easy to see when you drive past.
Startup blog prize (free book) for anyone who can tell me what they do without calling the number (or knowing someone who works there / digging around).
I’m all for single minded simplicity, but if we are going to go to the effort to paint the brand and phone number, it’s also handy to have a tag line which tells people what we do.
Steve – rentoid.com
When aiming to generate media coverage for our startup or business. We often get one thing wrong. The thing we get wrong is related to our training as marketers.
We are too targeted. We are too fussy on who’s right for our product.
Answer – the right media vehcile is the media vehicle who’ll ‘cover it’.
In fact we need to do the reverse and cast the net wide. In fact cast the media net as wide as possible. What needs to be targeted is ‘the message’. The message needs to be written for the forum. But, in truth most of us have way more messages in our business than we have bothered to think about, or even invent.
The message or pitch is all about them, their readers and their viewers. The bait has got to be right as well. So before you pitch – work out how many angles you’ve got and you’ll be surprised what you can dig up. Especially for startups – who can exchange at a minimum, a few learning’s from the battle field, some business insights.
Here’s my example of Media angles for rentoid.com
Altruistic – Helping people
Business methods
Making Money from idle assets
Saving money – rent instead of buying stuff
Web news – first of its’ type
Startup stories
Technology used
Ecologically sound (no we don’t mean carbon offset)
Green message
Making the web physical connect – going beyond virtual
Helping the financially challenged
Temporary needs
Temporary residents
Reduce storage requirements / household clutter
Virtual organisations / outsourcing
Vicarious living (renting things you can’t afford) ….
There’s more, but you’re bored already. I’m just showing what’s possible. And if you have your doubts check out the rentoid media page here, of which not a cent has been paid for.
How many ‘media angles’ does your startup have?
Steve – rentoid.com