Category: entrepreneurship

I’ve mentioned here and on my twitter feed a new startup I’m building called Sneaky Surf. It’s a cross between the old FourSquare and Runkeeper. A surfing fraternity that helps its members surf more.

But it’s not just about the startup. It’s building the community I’ve always wanted to be part of. Growing up all my friends surfed and we enjoyed this activity like many teenagers do. My surfing mates didn’t live at the beach, then adult life got in the way and all my friends surfed less and less until I was the only one left. It took me the best part of 20 to find other lone surfers like me. Those who still went after their mates dropped off the scene. I meet most online, not in the water. Sneaky Surf is simply about putting a fence around the behaviour which already existed.

At last I’ve got a micro-community of city-dwelling surfers to organise sessions, share surf stories and follow pro surfing with and of course, talk about surfing in all its forms. It’s not really about the commercial outcome. As far as my co-founder and I on Sneaky Surf are concerned, we’ve already succeeded. We’ve built a surfing community for ourselves. Part of the community means running events for surfers. So we are doing a surf movie night in Melbourne, something that never happens anymore. Years ago it was a thing to go see a surf movie on the big screen with your surf crew. So we’re bringing it back through Sneaky Surf.

Community is about creating the world we want to live in. Not a contrived marketing strategy. If a business evolves from it, good – but the reason we exist is to help surfers surf more and enjoy the surfing experience. I think more startups should be focused on this – creating the things you want to exist. When we do this it means much more than numbers. But just maybe, the numbers come anyway because the ‘why’ is so strong.

Now – If you’re a surfer in Melbourne or know any surfers – please send them this link to come along and watch the greatest surf movie of all time – March 7th at 7pm. We are even putting on beers, food and prizes – because we love surfing.

If you could share the event link on your social channels that would help me too – you might have surfing mates and not even know it!

Thanks for your help – Steve.

“We have come to rely upon capitalism for justice and the government for economic stimulation, precisely the opposite of what reason would suggest. Capitalism does not produce justice, any more than knife fights do. It produces winners and energy and growth. It is the job of government to channel that energy and growth into socially useful avenues, without stifling what it seeks to channel. That’s the basic problem of our form of government: how to achieve a balance between economic vitality and justice. It is a problem that we increasingly ignore.”

This quote is from journalist Donald Kaul way back in 1990. It’s only got worse since then.

This is what is wrong with our current form of Government. We expect them to create and protect our jobs, and guarantee income. While we then expect employers and the capitalist system to take on social positions of human protection. This is a very dangerous reversal of what should be.

A simple example in the startup sphere would be for Government to allow equity crowd funding on line in Australia. And let the market do the growing from there.

It’s another great reminder that we need to rely on ourselves economically, and push the Government to protect and provide social platforms. The regulatory and commercial environment we end up with is always a direct result of what we accept as a populace.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

 

Pay your credit card off the day you use it for a transaction. Yes, that exact day.

Forgo the credit free period in exchange for the control paying immediately gives you. Credit cards should be used to make a transaction safer and more convenient, not as a delayed cost mechanism. And if you haven’t got the money, you shouldn’t use the card. The habit we create with paying it immediately, is worth much more than the potential gains in interest. Habits are always more valuable than micro financial gains.

Oh, and by the way, funding your startup on a credit card is a mugs game. Every winner we read about it working for is among a thousand invisible and unreported losers.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

 

Head of Digital.

Or any other senior C-Suite role which has the word ‘digital’ in it.

There is no digital, only strategy. Having a Chief Digital person is a bit like having Chief of Industrial, or a Head of Electricity. Which clearly sound ridiculous. These are not departments, but an integral part of the infrastructure.

If a company has a head of digital means they still don’t get it after 20 years. It also it tells me these two important things:

1.  They are still thinking in verticals, instead of the emerging horizontal ‘metastructure‘. They think digital is a thing off to the side, instead a new layer in industry which effects everything & everyone.
2. They don’t believe it is something that every person in every division should understand, and that they can continue to do what they’ve always done and add this new inconvenient bit to it.

It’s this thinking that will send them broke, force disruption upon them. They are not seeing what is really happening and are taking a defensive position, instead of an all encompassing revolutionary one. And believe me, this is a revolution for the ages.

Simple advice from Startup blog is this: If you want your company to survive the impending disruption, then make sure no single person in your entire organisation has the word digital in their title.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

Business admin is one of those annoying things. Expenses, invoices, cleaning emails,… But I look forward to it. It’s that part of my day where I can turn off small parts of my brain, and turn on some enjoyment. My hack is allowing it to be a time when I listen to music, have a podcast on in the background, watching a documentary simultaneously, check out some 80’s video clips.

All of our brain isn’t needed all the time, sometimes turning bits of it off, can help us get other work done which is a bit of a turnoff.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.