entrepreneurship Archives - Page 147 of 235

Know what to do

Posted on May 10, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

I was thinking about my business rentoid.com and why I believe we, the rentoid team can succeed making this business something incredibly valuable for all our people. (I’ll do my next blog entry on those two important words, valuable & people).

These are the 4 reasons:

Our concept has been validated in market.
We know what to do.
We know how to do it.
We are are actually doing it – right now.

If you have these 4 factors working in your favour, then success is inevitable. Of course all of these elements need some explaining.

1. Our concept has been validated in market.

Firstly let’s look at the last two words in this sentence – in market. This means we have launched, we are live, we have customers, and revenue. We have gone beyond the idea (the easy part), and launched something which makes the original business launch plan a historical & irrelevant document. Concept validation – this has occurred when people are buying what we sell as well as any positive coverage we have. Coverage includes people and media talking about what we are doing for other people, the people who buy from us, not us. Basically – the business has potential and isn’t a stupid whim.

2. We know what to do.

We’ve been doing what we do, selling what we sell long enough to know the crappy parts of our business. We know what we must improve to make our semi-broken, yet still alive startup get better. We’ve been around long enough to have feedback from the market which gives us a good indication of how to improve our ‘thing’. Until this point innovation, location, good people and lots of saying sorry has kept us alive. But time has nearly run out, and we’ve learned what must be done to grow and eventually thrive.

3. We know how to do it.

Not only do we understand the above conceptually, but we actually know how to make this stuff happen. We’ve gone beyond ideas for improvement like – make the website more usable, reduce the price of the widget, create national brand awareness or increase distribution, and actually have an executable plan in place. A plan which isn’t a pipe dream, but an achievable reality. A reality in which we have the team, the skills, the financial resources and the time needed to bring our improved offer to market.

4. We are actually doing it – right now.

The plans have been put down as discussed in parts 2 and 3. In fact we won’t even look at them again. They are now ‘historical documents’. Instead we are fully engaged in implementing what we have agreed is the correct strategy. They are live projects the team is actively engaged in on a daily basis which will fundamentally change the marketing mix of our business. The projects have budgets and deadlines and we will not rest until they have been completed. Only then will we go back to part 2, 3 and 4 again.

When we do this – we are on the path to success.

(Which by the way we should define as follows: Success = the progressive realization of a worthwhile ideal. )

Word power

Posted on May 10, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

I had lunch with the Author of the Squiggly Line on Friday – Steve Hopkins. Steve is a thinker who actually spends his life doing stuff which is valuable to you and me, less so him. His current gig being working for the Future Summit, which is part of the Australian Davos connection.

Words matter, they matter a lot more than we think, they matter a lot more than money, and matter a lot more than anything. Words are the most powerful thing we’ve developed as humans.

Together we had some great conversation and I decided to write down some of the words which really resonated. Then write a bit about them in the context of that conversation. So here the words:

Verbal Veneer – We discussed the same boring language we here from media organizations, company CEO’s and politicians. The type of language which focuses on saying many words, which have no definable meaning, or worse, meaning for which we can come back to someone and say… ‘But you said this…”. example of such language. ‘We are current;y assessing the scenario and it’s impact of the constituents and will engage in due course.’ What frog shit.

Agitators – People who are prepared to question, annoy, and challenge for the sake of good. Luck for us Steve is focused on getting as many agitators to the Future Summit. People like Cameron Reilly. We need more agitators.

Cog – Steve was saying that his previous role made him feel like he was just a cog in the system. He couldn’t go through life being a cog. He wanted to create, change and challenge things. This is not the job of a cog.

Mega trends – When discussing some of the big trends out there, we discussed what makes them so. we decided that it’s not about popularity and population involvement or media noise, more so, what impact these trends have on the plight of the Human species, this is what creates the real distinction between mega trends and fads.

Autonomy & Freedom – What is freedom? The dictionary has 19 meanings for this noun. But all of these come down to one important factor: The ability to decide. The ability to decide and act in a manner which suits oneself. Decision making autonomy in a physical and mental sense. The ability to decide what to do and what to think. Decide how to spend our minutes. This is real freedom, and such autonomy is what creates happiness.

User friendly – Self Check

Posted on May 10, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

When it comes to usability I really think Qantas has got it right with the digital interface on their self checking system. (Incidentally I don’t think that have their concept of self checking correct with all the double handling, but just the digital interface is great). The reason I’ve decided to feature it here is I think it’s a great lesson in website usability, and what future interfaces on the web will look like. Especially when we desire to get our users to take a particular action – to transact in some way.

Before you click on the visual below and get your live example, think about a few things this user interface must consider:

Consumers of all ages
People with all levels of website / digital experience
Speed
Intuition
Reliability

In fact what they must do, is harder than any website business must.

So here’s the visual of how easy it to use – for any one. When you click on the visual below it will take you to the Qantas website where you can get various demonstrations of how it works. Click on ‘View Demonstration’ and pay attention to the simplicity, and single step focus of each page:

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According to startup blog – this is the future of design interface.

How to generate media for your startup

Posted on May 4, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

Here’s a recent Article I wrote for Anthill Magazine:

When aiming to generate media coverage for our start-up or business, we often get one thing wrong. It relates to our training as marketers. We are too targeted.

In fact, we need to do the reverse and cast the media net wide – as wide as possible. What needs to be targeted is ‘the message’, not the media organisations we aim at. The message needs to be written for the forum. But, in truth, most of us have way more messages in our business than we have bothered to think about, or even invent. Yes, we can invent messages.

The message or pitch needs to be all about them, their readers and their viewers. Never us or our start-up. So before you pitch, work out how many angles you’ve got and you’ll be surprised what you can dig up. In fact, you’ve got to give a bit before you get anything – especially for start-ups, who can exchange a few learnings from the battlefield.

Here’s an idea-jam for potential examples of media angles for Start-up X.

Altruistic – helping people
Business methods you’ve used
Helping people make money
Saving money by using your products
Productivity improvements of staff
Web news – first of its type
Start-up stories
Technology used
Ecologically sound (no, we don’t mean carbon offset)
Green message
Making the web-physical connect – going beyond virtual
Helping the financially challenged
Help people connect with customers
It’s über new
It’s the old world reinvented
Vicarious living….

There’s more, but you’re bored already. I’m just showing what’s possible. Stuff like this equals free media. Pages/slots have to be filled.

Frequency vs Depth

While we know we need advertising or media exposure, the thing we need most is frequency. Advertisers talk about depth and frequency. (Depth being how many people we reach on each occasion. Frequency being how often we reach them.) It’s great to let zillions of people know about our start-up as quickly as we can. We may even be lucky enough to get some kind of viral campaign working for our start-up – we may be featured in the newspaper, on TechCrunch or we might even be lucky enough get a TV spot.

After the event, here’s what happens: people cook dinner, pick up the kids from school, pay the bills, kick the dog and get on with life. Our start up doesn’t really matter to them… straight away.

Consumer awareness goes something like this:

Exposure 1: “That’s a cool idea/product/concept.”

Exposure 2: “Oh, yeah, I must remember to check that out.”

Exposure 3: “There it is again. Might be worth having a look.”

Exposure 4: “Hmm, Ok – I’ll check it out when I’m shopping/online next.”

Exposure 5: They finally act and go look at / investigate / touch / feel / try….

After many exposures we have “a chance” of selling to them. Sure some people check it out first time, some buy straight away, but the large majority need to be reminded, over and over again. This doesn’t mean you need to spam them or do terrible interruption marketing. It means you need to send frequent and relevant marketing communications to the people who might care.

It’s a lot like us never noticing an advertisement for a car until you are in the market to buy one. They’re always there, we just have selective perception.

This is why advertising frequency is king. No point having a big launch campaign if your prospective new customers aren’t looking on that occasion. For entrepreneurs, the big launch concept is a hoax. It’s unsustainable. We’re far better off being there all the time, in some way – then we don’t have to predict when people will buy.

And before you waste a shipload of money on a PR agency, the truth is the media aren’t listening anymore. Well, listening to PR firms…. Once upon a time, a PR agency had the secret access keys to journalists. That made them powerful. But things have changed. Now we can access anyone with a few Twitter messages and some Google magic. And the PR agency messages are very 1993. In an age of authenticity, we are far better off going direct. Developing a relationship with media contacts is far more valuable than wasting money on outsourcing PR. People want to talk to the person, and that person is you.

Want proof ?– check out the rentoid.com about page and scroll down to see the media we have generated – none of which has been paid for.

The nature of deadlines

Posted on May 3, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

If school didn’t start at 9am what time would we turn up?

If tax returns didn’t have to be done by a certain date, when would we do it?

If childbirth was possible at any age, when would we conceive?

If our stomach didn’t have an eating deadline, when would we feed it?

Nature is smart and builds in deadlines for us.We ought understand the nature of deadlines.

Quite often in startup land we try to shun the usual behaviour of more established institutions like schools and corportations. And in many area this is a valid concept. But as far as deadlines are concerned this is something we should adopt. We should be strict on deadlines in the same way we had exams, and due dates at work. It’s a simple and vital discipline.

Work expands with the time allowed for it’s completion. So the time must be stamped. With an agreed deadline, we must cram to get it done. We must be accountable and our business will benefit.

deadlines

If we don’t embrace the simple discipline of deadlines our more astute competitors will evolve much quicker, and more quickly make their stuff awesome. Deadlines ensure we continue to make our company, product or website awesome. Because each deadline is an incremental improvement. Without deadlines all we end up with is awesome and ever evolving blueprints, which our customers never see, or gain any benefit from.

Startup blog says – embrace deadlines and win.

Creating rituals

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

Greg Borrowman, the editor of Australian Hi-Fi magazine, has another one. He thinks we’re yearning for what was lost when analog music yielded to digital.

“CDs have no personality; they’re set and forget,” he says. “With vinyl, it’s ritual. You slide the LP out of its sleeve, then deftly remove it from the inner dust jacket, making sure not to touch the playing surface. You place it on the platter with both hands, like an offering. You clean the record’s surface and perhaps the stylus. Only then do you lower the tonearm to be rewarded with the music.”

What rituals are you creating for your startup?

The web is Punk.

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

What is Punk – what is Punk rock?

Here’s a definition I shamelessly lifted from wikipedia:

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock. They created fast, hard-edged music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY (do it yourself) ethic, with many bands self-producing their recordings and distributing them through informal channels.

When I read the above definition – I loved it so much I decided to highlight the key words and talk about them in our new world of the web and why the punk ethic is what we are embracing.

Garage Rock – Many of us start in our garage, or spare room – we start our projects simply because we have a vision of doing it our way, or because it’s just worth doing. We are doing it for us. We start without any support. We pull together the minimum requirements to get started.

Eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream – Large corporations have been taking advantage of us consumers, no – ‘people’ for far too long. Mainstream business has been churning out average stuff for average people and making large profits doing so. The excess has sickened us to the point where we have shown we can get our startups off the ground on a shoe string, with the software and tools we built for ourselves. We provide something better – and our fans prove it. Importantly success has not driven us to become corpulent pigs simultaneously. We beleive in egalitarianism and we are utilitarian.

Fast, hard-edged – We focus on speed. Before the large corporations have even turned around – we have a following a passionate fan group, and they wonder what happened.

Stripped-down instrumentation – We don’t need every tool in the business to make stuff happen. There is no research department, there is no prototype or an excess of departments involved – just us. We just make great stuff with a minimum of inputs. It’s made with passion so it just works.

Political, anti establishment –Yes, we want to do it different, we want to bust down the old paradigm, and have some fun doing it. The establishment does annoy us, and we want to show them we can do it better. We treat our customers like people, and engage on a personal level. We engage in conversation, and listen. We hate the arrogance of large corporations, so quite simply we don’t behave like them. We embrace the crowd and let things evolve.

Embraces a DIY –We don’t ask for permission. We don’t need to work within the existing infrastructure. We don’t need authoritative figures lining our pockets to get started. They usually do that after they discover the cool stuff we’ve already made.

Distributing them through informal channels – The channels didn’t even exist when we got started. So we made our own. The web is our channel, independent, large and evolving. No one owns it or controls it, it’s organic and we love it.

Web people and startups – thanks for starting Punk 2.0

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