Category: business ideas

Quirky fact: Boring = Profitable

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Unless you are from the US – you have never even heard of any of the 10 oldest businesses in the USA. Nope, not one. There’s not a sexy brand among them. They include boring industries like, banking, ingredients, manufacturing inputs and insurance.

You can check it out by clicking here.

The important insight for Start Ups and investors is this:

The boring stuff is almost always more profitable than the sexy.

Why: Because exciting, sexy stuff attracts lot’s of competitors and people want to play there. They want to play there because it’s fun, it’s in the papers, it’s featured in business forums and leverages over-riding social trends. Then it gets busy and the cream disappears – (read here abnormal economic profits) . It’s no different to the house prices rising in popular suburbs and the yield declining. Simple economics discovered centuries ago.

So what? It’s vital we know the difference between sustainable & exciting. The most important factor for survivial is profit – end of story. Sure, profits can be made in any industry, but chances are there’s more profit in the areas everyone else forgot about.

Rambo – the ultimate boostrapper

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Rambo First Blood part 1, is a movie all entreprenuers ought invest 2 hours watching.

The key lessons is simple: The ultimate resource is creativity. It’s game winning. John Rambo single handedly defeats an army choc full of resources, through ‘creative boostrapping’. Bootstrapping which then invented new tactics the competitors didn’t even consider. Key words that come to mind are; Insight, Passion, Risk, Mind Control, Tenacity, Belief and Courage. This film should be the first lesson in any entrepreneurial learning forum. Be like Rambo and win.

25 years on this film still rocks. There are so many cool scenes I won’t ruin it here by explaining them. Better yet, go watch it, then tell us your favourite scene and why in the comments below.

Media diet – startup style

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

As promoted in the 4 hour work week a media diet is a nice way save time. For entrepreneurs a different type of media diet is required.

A business trends diet

Here’s how – avoid all business related articles as they pertain to new strategies & trends.

Here’s why – We already know enough to be successful. Our problem is doing the stuff.

Unless we are just starting in the business world – we’ve heard every strategy and the fact is that most ‘new’ business ideas are simple derivatives of business theories which have been around since the birth of commerce. Cables channels and tech stuff is the worst. Who’s got the time to read 86 posts from techcrunch every day? – not me.

We ought just trust our judgment and make the call that we know enough to get moving…and the rest we’ll learn on the job…. So in the spirit of this blog entry, ignore the articles you were about to read and get back to your stuff.

Engage your customers

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Really the title should say “people” – we don’t do business with customers, it’s the greatest lie of all time. People trade with people. But I just gave it that title so I could teach people this who stumbled upon this blog entry…

So here’s how we do it at rentoid.com

We have a live chat session with our people. Answer all their questions, assess their concerns and just get to know them. Tonight we are doing it at 7.30pm Aust Syd / Melbourne time.

Go here to log on: http://rentoid.com/live

You can see the startup blog author in action live and see if he (me) can deliver it all live. So tune in, tell your friends and get a shout out!

Retail Madness

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I took this photo in a local mall in Melbourne on August 9th – The coldest part of winter.

Anyone who lives in or has been to Melbourne knows it’s still very cold until November. Yet the clothing retail chain above already has summer clothes only in the display window. And they’ve already started their winter clothes clearance – in the middle of winter!

The top temperature on said day was 11ºc / 55ºf with snow falls down to 400m.

Here’s the weather forecast for Melbourne for the coming week:

This is retail gone mad – for a few reasons:

They are selling their ‘winter’ stock ‘during winter’ at a 70% discount?

Consumers don’t care about their buying seasons, just what the weather’s like – right now.

Melbourne people don’t care what the weather’s like in Queensland.

People’s lives are too busy to buy clothing 4 months in advance.

They are letting their supply chain get in front of what consumers actually need and want.

No prizes for guessing the store was empty.

If we buy hot soup on cold days, and ice cream on hot days, why should clothing be any different? It’s not. And is less so, as time becomes the finite resource.

If you’re a start up in the retail arena.

Startup blog says: make your range, match the ‘real’ world. You’ll be far ahead of any retail chain.

What about your people?

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

All our startups, businesses and brands have their people. It’s members, it’s customers. The humans that matter in whatever we do. So how do we connect with them? Not talk to them or worse, at them, but how do we really connect with them?

Here’s what we are doing at rentoid. We are having an coffee session in the CBD of melbourne (our home city) where members can come and grab an espresso and simply chat. If only 1 person turns up, that’s fine by us. Because that one person matters as much as the 250,000 others. In fact to them, they are the only person that matters.

The discussion will be whatever the people want it to be about. Not a contrived focus group. What matters is making a connection with them, being a group of people trying to help each other, breaking down the traditional corporate facade. Not having any gatekeepers.  And quite frankly we can’t wait.

If you’re in Melbourne came and meet the rentoid team for a chat and an espresso on us before work. We can chat about startups, marketing, life and maybe even rentoid. We’ll be at Journal in Flinders lane. All the details are here.

When’s the last time you took time out to hang with your people?

Best Pitch Ever

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

London Advertising Agency Prima, were pitching for the Ford Motor Co advertising account. This was in the halcyon days of advertising circa 1969.

They decided to do the following:

They dismantled a Ford Escort car. Took it up the stairs piece by piece, part by part and then put it back together in the board room. This was where the pitch was to take place. The people who did this were not mechanics. It was the people who would be working on the Ford account. The creatives and the account managers. The idea was entirely conceived and executed by the people who would be working with Ford on their advertising.

When the Ford people arrived for the pitch. They were flummoxed to say the least. And immediately asked how they got the car in the building?  Given there was no obvious way for the actual car to get in the building, let alone up the stairs!

The pitch then commenced with the Prima advertising team telling the story. Which no doubt included some of the trials and tribulations of dismantling & building a car piece by piece. But more so, showed all the intangibles which ultimately won them the account:

Passion, Ideas, Creativity, work ethic…

And a willingness to stretch themselves as a partner and an understanding of what Ford do, beyond that which any other advertising agency could have.

This is the benchmark. What will your next business pitch look like?