Collingwood Football Club president Eddie McGuire offers this retrospective on cheque book recruiting:
“I’ve never seen anyone who won the lotto become *Kerry Packer”
*insert revered businessperson’s name here…
Entrepreneur lesson:
Hoping and luck is never the same as learning, creating and building.
Momentum is the key to the success for any start up.
In classical mechanics, momentum is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. P=mV
The start up blog definition is a bit simpler:
Momentum = How big you are X How quick you do things.
Hence, the momentum of anything will increase if either of the above factors increase while the other factor remains constant. That is, you don’t need both factors to gather momentum.
A small thing moving fast can gather momentum. A big thing moving slowly can gather momentum. This is why big companies (although they react slowly) still have momentum, their mass helps them maintain their forward motion and ulitmate power.
The lesson for start ups is simple;
We want to gather momentum
We are small
We must focus on speed
Not sure if it will sell more chocolate blocks, but it’s hilarious and has already gone viral.
Update: Marketing wiz – Ben Rowe, gives an accurate reality check on this campaign and viral marketing in general here.
I got this bacn from someone in my permission database.
Some messages for startups and employees alike. As well as a little Machiavellian humour.
Got this email back from a company that sells custom t-shirts on the web called Neighbourhoodies after I sent in an email query.
Dear Steve,
We at Neighborhoodies think Curiosity is an underrated virtue, so thank you for writing in. This email is merely to confirm that your question or comment has been successfully received.
Here is your ticket number:
http://www.neighborhoodies.com/ticket_view.php?tlid=8L4Q4I
Ticket Number: 8L4Q4I0s3E8uxyt
It is a meaningless number and you do not need it. Nevertheless, please print out this number, memorize it, then shred the number into pieces and eat it. Chew first. If at that moment your phone rings, it’s us. Let the phone ring twice then speak the code in Swiss-German, or make guttural sounds to indicate you are choking on the shredded bits.
Thank you.
Sincerely, Neighborhoodies
It tells me so much about them, their values, that they’re human and they have a sense of humour. All the things that ‘real people’ have and corporate facades do not.
Cost – zero. Value – infinite.
Kudos Neighbourhoodies.
One reason to do anything:
Because it’s worth doing
Business advice often given to entrepreneurs is how to protect themselves and their business. Think company formations, insurances, trademarks, partnership deals, business names et al.
These are all very costly for a start up. It’s often better to leave these things to the last minute. It’s easy to get excited and just register everything possible so you own all the relevant IP. That way your best friend and business partner Joe can’t steal all your personal assets….
Do it later. Any money spent which isn’t directly going to generate revenue can wait. There is nothing worse than wasting valuable cash on protecting business that never got to revenue.
Once we’re up and running it’s a great investment. But not in the early days, or during the pre-revenue period.
