This screen dump from a presentation on Youtube says a lot. It’s the content loaded up on youtube everyday…
And mainstream media said it would never work. You can click here to see the enitre presentation. A bit long at 55 minutes – worth watching.
Category: brands
The 3 resources
The 3 resources which matter for start ups and any business are listed below:
- People
- Finance
- Technology
What do we need in each of these areas?
How do they interact in our area of business?
How will they change over time?
The questions about the 3 resources above should be in constant review. They remain in a constant state of flux.
If our current execution plan does not cover these areas and their interddence, then we’ve got a rocky road ahead – guaranteed.
Simple Innovation
When we think about innovation, our minds get lost in big ideas and large investment. The Space shuttle, Electric cars, desalination plants, the Airbus A380. We’ve been influenced by mainstream business media, and the military industrial complex. As entrepreneurs we’d be much better placed to think as micro as possible when considering how to innovate. Because unless we are ‘inventers’ or ‘engineers’, the only innovations we need to care about are those which get to market.
Take this simple innovation from the publishing industry.
Magazine subscriptions which have been repacked to be sold in a new / yet existing distribution channel.
Before this shift in mindset, magazine subscriptions were only sold as in magazine leaflets, through call centers and via door knocking. Enter new packaging format, and all of sudden a magazine subscription is being retailed in newsagents and bookstores (This photo was taken in Borders). It becomes a simple ‘gift’ which provides us something we can hand ‘hand over’ to the recipient to touch and hold – we can even gift wrap it. It opens new revenue possibilities.
It’s clear that there is little capital expenditure with this innovation, which is simply a widening of distribution. In fact – new forms of distribution are often the most profitable innovations.
Start ups – When innovating, think micro.
Steve – founder rentoid.com
Tough times
In tough times, operating in a non revenue generating business gets difficult. All your business may even dry up.
It doesn’t mean these activites aren’t important, it’s more a reflection of human behaviour. Unless the link of the activity to the transaction is clear – it will get pulled. This is true for consulting, marketing budgets or even your job. So the question we then must ask is this – how close are we to where money changes hands? Are we close to the transaction or in the backroom somewhere?
The further say we are from the money – the greater redundency exposure we have, in business and employment. Closeness to money is why many real estate agents who are often intellectual dodo’s still make big dollars. I’m sure you can think other examples too.
If you want to be an indispensable business partner in tough times, make sure you are close to the money.
Steve – founder rentoid.com
Company Mantra – It’s in the game!
While watching a documentary on the evolution of video games I heard the coolest company mantra ever.
It was from EA sports, the gaming company which focused on creating games which closely represented the real thing. More important for startups was how they got there. One of the key developers came up with the internal motto “if it’s in the game, it’s in the game”. This later evolved to be the brand tagline “It’s in the game!”
EA went the extremes to put everything ‘in the game’. Some of these extremes include:
- Getting the actual TV commentators to do voice overs on the games
- Licensing teams, sporting organizations brands & players
- Getting the actual athletes in the studio to get each players exact movements
The result being amazingly realistic games. Amazing games which wouldn’t have been possible without the mantra – a mantra which simply did not accept compromise.
Mantra is only powerful if we embrace it in every thing we do. EA sports did and went on to be a $4 billion US company with large profit margins.
What is your startup mantra?
steve – founder rentoid.com
More on leadership
Leaders have to sell hope. That is their job.
So when we lead our team, partners, tribe, customers, family or friends, we know we’ve achieved something when their belief levels match ours. When this happens we’ve lead our crew to where ‘we all’ want to be. And belief is a key ingredient in achieving goals.
It starts with belief. But this shared belief, is one small part of great leadership, it is by no means the only ingredient.
How solid are the belief levels in your startup world?
Steve – founder rentoid.com
Our Job
Our job as entrepreneurs is this:
“To organize the factors of production.”
To organize these factors from concept to revenue in perpetuity. This is our job in a ‘for profit’ organization. The number one challenge is not to become a factor of production. If we do this then we’ll never actually own a business.
Steve – founder rentoid.com