The late and great John Lennon said:
“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”
Hmm…. Maybe we ought, invent, create, live or just ‘start’ now.
Category: Business admin
When things go wrong
Update – all fixed. phew…
When things go wrong – admit it and fix it….
At this very second something is wrong with rentoid.com – people can’t join…a big issue for us.
While the tech team are on it, we posted this blog entry which might advise those who see the blog…
Any other ideas / solutions?
Fun parks and CBD’s
In reality there are two ways we can define websites. They’re either Fun Parks or Central Business Districts.
Startup blog definitions:
Fun park: A website which is primarily in existence for the entertainment of its users. A place to enjoy, socialize, have fun and waste time.
Central Business District (CBD): A website which has a commercial function from it’s inception and is essentially there to assist people in trade.
Examples of each include:
| Fun parks | CBD’s |
|
Youtube |
Ebay |
|
|
Paypal |
|
Flickr |
Amazon |
|
Hot or not |
Lulu |
Sure, there’s some overlap, but it’s the insights behind the two variants that matter.
Fun parks are ‘fun’. They’re easy to use and addictive in nature. They tend to spread quicker and go viral because there’s less risk. We’re not being asked to spend money, just enjoy the rides. So the fun park fills up quickly, gets popular and the owners monetize them by selling advertising billboards to all the eyeballs in the fun park. Eventually the park becomes overcrowded and people start to leave. They tend to have a rotating user base.
CBD’s are useful. Sometimes fun, but usually more serious and offer ‘value’. The commercial function is built in to the site, hence it doesn’t need to ‘monetize’ itself. People tend to investigate more, take longer to put their name down and join site. But once the do, they often become evanaglists and do the marketing for the site. They build more slowly, maybe take years, but usually end up with a more loyal user base. And rightfully end up more profitable. (profit as defined by yield)
Both are valid, both are evolving. If you’re a start up, it just pays to know which category you fit into.
Some stuff all web startups should know
I’ve just read the following book. 50 great e-Businesses and the minds behind them. By Emily Ross and Angus Holland. It includes all our favourites over the past 10 years. Put simply it’s insightful.
I really think you should read it, but if you’re time poor like most entrepreneurs here’s my bullet point summary for you:
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More than 80% of these businesses were founded and run by non-technical people (web designers / coders etc)
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Only a handful actually went viral and had overnight success
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‘Fun parks’ build traffic & members quicker than ‘real commercial sites’ (see next blog entry)
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The majority did not have VC funding, fancy offices, or even staff. They bootstrapped.
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Most took much longer than 2 years to build
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The most unexpected and common thing that drove success was cold calling & collaboration
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The entrepreneurs behind them we’re driven by the idea, belief and excitement – not only the potential for big money.
Worth a read.
Innovative or annoying?
Emirates Airlines have just announced they will be…
“the first airline in the world to commercially launch an inflight mobile telephone service, affording even greater convenience to passengers wishing to stay connected while traveling.”
Hmm… has one of the last bastions of peace and tranquility afforded by the lack of mobile phones has just been destroyed?
The question is this: Which airlines will decide that many passengers will hate this ‘innovation’.
I can only see it making the traveling experience less pleasurable. On top of this Emirates has invested some US$27 million to fit its fleet with the AeroMobile system. On something which may actually turn away customers!
It’s also true that Emirates currently has 7000 calls made per month from its in seat phone service. Approx $200,000 revenue which will be lost every month.
With certain innovations smart startups will often need to decide which half of their customers they want to keep happy. It will be interesting to see how this one plays out.
Keeping up to date
Can be a huge time waster. The irony for us in startup land is that it’s our job to stay informed.
Startup blog advice: If you need to stay on top of a broad topic find a good aggregator.
Someone who’ll cover stuff when it becomes important enough for you to know. Seth Godin does this for me as far as web 2.0 and new marketing is concerned. Startup blog does this for you as far as keeping your mind thinking as an entrepreneur should.
Got some good short cut summary sites? On new technology, web sites, new businesses? Add them to comments.
The map
Sometimes we’re not as lost as we think we are. We just need to put the brakes on. Stop and revisit our map.
We need to find our location, and determine if we’re on target, or if we’ve made a few wrong turns. If we’re not where we’d like to be, we might need to change direction.
The important this are that we don’t obsess over the map every day, or just keep forging ahead when we’re lost.