Category: entrepreneurship

New Auto Resume Service

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

An amazing new auto resume service is on the web these days. You just go to their website, type in your name, and an extremely detailed and up to date resume is automatically generated. Very nifty: click here to give it a try: http://bit.ly/c4Ob8S

Whether or not you are disappointed with the service or your results is irrelevant. This is what people are using to check you out before they ask their friends about you or your startup. It’s more trusted than what you write.

The good news is that we can change it, use google to our advantage.

How?

– By making sure we have a digital footprint for our name, startup or charity work.

– By registering our own domain with links of our output and or things we care about.

– By having a meaningful blog, twitter feed, newsletter, YouTube channel or other category specific media channel.

– By doing the point above well and getting some mainstream coverage for our output.

SAT scores are dead. Welcome to the new world of digital assessment.

Great bootstrapping

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

This Nutrigrain commercial isn’t really about cereal. It’s a message for Entrepreneurs. Take a look.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–8dc0_9Se4]

Notice how he didn’t let his environment (non coastal) hold him back?

Notice the tools he built to train himself and replicate his desired future?

Notice, the time invested in his dream, the years of dedication?

He wasn’t concerned about the resources he didn’t have, rather those he could use to bootstrap his training. It’s an attitude that all entrepreneurs should have.

Best we take a second look.

Economic irrationalist

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Lately I’ve been making a few decisions which are economically irrational. Making decisions which are, on the face of it, financially inept.

For example, I starting to feel a sense of loyalty to my chief technology officer for rentoid.com

He’s not the cheapest and he’s not the best. Probably somewhere in the middle for both. I could probably get someone cheaper with similar skills, or better for the same price. But I don’t. In fact I tell him that I’m loyal to him. A large part of why I want  to succeed so that he can succeed also, to share it with him. Even though he has not risked the capital, or the time that I have on the project.

Why would I act this way. Well I like working with him. He’s a nice guy, and sometimes that’s enough.

I guess you could call me an Economic Irrrationalist. And it just feels right.

Web everywhere

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Recently I was chatting with a Director at a global advertising agency about changes in the media landscape. The impact that the internet was having. She mentioned that the internet only affected a certain portion of the population – not all target audiences. The younger generation, the web savvy, the technophiles…

I retorted with the following:

Once upon the web was a thing you had to visit. First it was in military installations, then Universities. Eventually it was present in only very large corporates on selected computers. Later, on every desk in every company. Afterwhich  every computer in every home had it. And now it’s on our latops, in our cafes, in our pockets, it’s the GPS that directs our cars and powers the touch screen shopping mall directory. Next year all TV’s sold will be web enabled – 5 billion channels. It’s on every digital display in our lives.

It came to us, it removed the original demographic bias. The web is everywhere and permeates our entire existence. It has changed advertising forever.

The web is no longer and thing or a place. It is omnipresent.

Launch choices

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Seems there are two choices in launching a startup or brand:

1. Buy an audience. [quick but expensive]

2. Earn a following. [slow and cheap]

The problem with the first option is that we don’t get many chances to refine our stuff, and getting it wrong can end it all. The benefit with the second option is that it allows and encourages experimentation. And if we experiment enough, we might just be able dome some of the first option too.

Convention busting – retail

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Long held wisdom in the retail industry is that items must be displayed on shelves by category. Idea being that we know what thing we are looking when we shop. But what if we’re just browsing? What if we don’t want anything in particular? Bring on Smiggle – stationary retailer who display their range by color.

Eyeball worthy…. I better go check out what they have in purple.

They aren’t the only ones moving towards it, as  on line retailer etsy also display their range on line by color, with an amazing interface – check it out. It just works.

What other conventions need to be busted in your startup category?