entrepreneurship Archives - Page 118 of 235

Everything to everyone

Posted on March 15, 2010 by Steve Sammartino

We live in a wordy world. It seems there’s a new acronym, piece of business jargon, or self defining adjective emerging every minute of the day. It’s easy to get caught up in the language, the jargon and forget what business and startups are all about:

Building stuff. Buying something for $1 and selling it for $2. Having a laugh along the way.

Keep it simple. Don’t try and be everything to everyone.

With all this in mind I’ll hand over to George Carlin – and yes, this video is worth every second of the 3.56 minutes it takes to watch.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6J3OD4Z0UQ]

When technology makes you obsolete

Posted on March 12, 2010 by Steve Sammartino

I once heard an interview with drummer Rob Hirst from the rock band Midnight Oil. It was in reference to one of their most critically acclaimed and best selling song, Power and the passion. Rob was asked about the infamous drum solo in the middle of the song, which not only doesn’t sound indulgent, but fits the rhythm and meaning of the song. What I find most interesting from an entrepreneurial perspective is how it all came about, this is what Rob had to say:

“It was 1982 and drum machines were entering the music scene and replacing drummers very quickly. They were cheaper and more reliable. It was a time when drummers were throwing themselves off cliff tops. Rather than fear the technological advancement, I thought it might be better to embrace it. I wondered how I could use it to supplement what I was already doing to make it better. So for the Power and the Passion, I decided to have a drum machine playing in the background on the entire track. By doing this it freed up my arms and legs to add some color to the song, and ultimately allowed for the drum solo which is often sited as the catalyst that makes the song so great.”

The story above is one for all the Luddites out there. for the technology fear mongers, and those who worry about being replaced. The truth is, we should be happy when technology replaces labour for the simple reason that it opens the door to creativity. It opens the door to opportunity, for a better use of our time and resources.

You can watch / listen the drum solo at 2.35 minutes on the clip below. Be sure to listen for the drum machine track quietly providing the beat underneath.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKB60_vTIO0]

PS – the smashing sound at the end of the solo is a florescent light tube Rob brought into the studio for a dramatic industrial effect, not a pane of glass. Awesome.

In order of preference

Posted on March 10, 2010 by Steve Sammartino

Face to face meeting

Phone call

Letter in the mail

Personal email

Blog entry

Email newsletter

Physical interactions are infinitely more valuable than digital ones. If we must communicate digitally, it should be the preamble to future physical, real human interaction.

Digital footprints

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Steve Sammartino

The coolest thing about digital media is this: The footprints last forever. Which means that some small promotional activity and links will endure, and sometimes pull a Jesus and get a second coming. Just like we did with rentoid.com on our www.iwearyourshirt.com promo. We recently got featured in the Fox News New York spot. The story wasn’t about us, but we had a good spot in it. You can watch it below.

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/good_day_ny/getting-paid-to-wear-a-shirt-20100308

Can boring brands create word of mouth?

Posted on March 8, 2010 by Steve Sammartino

This is the sixth of my crowd sourced blog entry ideas as suggested by Ben Rowe. Ben wanted to get my thoughts on the following:

“Can boring brands and products create word of mouth?” Discuss.

In a word, no. But given the task is to discuss, I’d say the fact that matters here is the word emotion. Does a brand generate an emotional response from the audience. Does it generate passion and fervor? Good or bad? If the response isn’t emotional. There will be no discussion.

The product or service may be very good, have a reasonable price and even be a market leader. Yes it may suffice or dominate it’s category, like cornflakes do as breakfast cereal, but I’m hardly about to email my brother with a link to the Kelloggs website.

We need to think about things that are emotional responses: Joy, Anger, Sadness, Elation, Fury, Disappointment, Love, Hate….

The heavy emotions every human is familiar with. A brand has to engender these type of emotional responses to get on the word of mouth agenda. Case in point is banks. They are seen to take advantage of their customers, and we have a strong distrust and hate for them. And even though the response is negative, it’s emotional and generates a great deal of discussion. That is, it’s not boring. It’s often the case that brands which have factional parties in the for and against camp (love / hate) generate the most word of mouth. Some recent examples of brands with this effect include:

All of these have been worth talking about. Our brand reputations as people wouldn’t be hindered if we mentioned these.

As far as start ups are concerned we should thinking less about trying to generate a viral campaign, and more about the emotional impact our offer has on our audience. Being new and innovative isn’t enough, it’s got to have an emotional impact on people. With boring brands we are simply indifferent, and so we just get on with our lives.

Brand names are worthless

Posted on March 4, 2010 by Steve Sammartino

We often read about the value of brand names: “The ikea brand alone is worth $12 billion – Interbrand”

Not really. The value of a brand is the infrastructure and value chain which has been built behind it, resulting in the ultimate revenue streams. In truth the brand name is worth very little. Think about many of the unexpected and surprising corporate failures. Lehman Brothers, Ansett Airlines and Worldcom to name a few. What are their brand names worth today? Zilch.

If the brand name was really worth something, they would be sold and re-launched in some capacity. When any company is bought, the brand name is merely an adendum. It’s not the name that is being bought, rather the system, the structure, actually it’s the organisation. Of which the brand name is a very small part, even though it is what is spruked as the compenant of ultiamte value.

Startups who want to build a brand should think less about names and logos and more about building an infrastructure and revenue streams.

The boot leather strategy

Posted on March 3, 2010 by Steve Sammartino

As entrepreneurs we can’t be afraid of boot leather as a strategy. It’s vital, even for web startups.

But recently I’ve been out selling rentoid partnerships (clipboard under arm sales rep style) to the rental industry in order to develop strategic alliances. It’s not easy, but I’m learning more doing this than I ever do looking into this computer screen.

In addition to that – 50% of the potential customers I find aren’t on my call sheet. They aren’t on the internet at all. If I wasn’t driving, walking and looking around I wouldn’t find them. They have no digital presence at all. When I do find them, they are usually glad I have.

If you’re genuine. If you have an offer that will help people with their business, and if you make the effort to go to where they are, you miles ahead of any entrepreneur, web or otherwise staring at his computer screen. Sure, it doesn’t sound very strategic, or webby, and it wont feature in techcrunch or mashable, but it’s a winning strategy of more internet and general startups than most people would ever believe.