Category: entrepreneurship

Distribution is King-er than content

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Apparently content is King. Well, hopefully I can present some evidence which might help you open your mind to who the real king is, and I’m saying it is distribution. I’ve had this contention for some time, and while amazing content can ride the sharing train and be crowned in the online kingdom, the big D of Distribution still determines who wins and loses when it comes to the commercial market.

Let’s take this current day example: The Youtube Rewind 2015 video. Which a few years ago was a fun and creative piece of content. This years version was marginal at best. If it didn’t have the front page on Youtube and a bazillion emails to distribute it to do you really think it would have 65 million views? You be the judge.

 

It simply would not make the cut. It wouldn’t be seen. It wouldn’t be shared. A few thousands views at best I reckon. And you can add to this to any number of average articles you read on Buzzfeed, Business Insider or any other powerful channel that have many views and shares. Invariably we’ll see that the key driver wasn’t the content itself, but the distribution engine behind it. The irony is that the great hope of the web was that the best stuff will bubble up to the top – no matter where it came from. Occasionally it still does, but mostly this new ‘great stuff’ resides in obscurity. How many blogs do you read, or podcasts do you listen to which you totally love and think should be ‘bigger’, but they never seem to hit the big time? I’m guessing your feed is full of great unknown content. Now that everyone is here and we all have something to say, powerful distribution matters more than it ever did. And if you can’t be heard, well it’s back to the future … you need to paying for attention. Except now it’s done on social forums and search. Who said history never repeats?

The one difference is that now we have access to the same tools and we can at least prove ourselves in micro channels. Even better, we can now make a living in niche land by talking to those who really care about what we have to say.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

 

Yes, we know Uber has no cars, but what do they really sell?

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

So by now everyone knows that Uber has exactly zero cars and Airbnb has zero hotel rooms. But this shouldn’t really be that surprising given it has been the playbook of the internet since like Altavista was a thing. So we can stop putting it in presentations as though it is a surprise. The web is a connection device, those who make the most useful connections win. It’s all about access, not ownership. While these two tech companies don’t own the assets they rely on, we ought remember some older examples from the ‘Connection Playbook’.

  • Apple have 800,000+ app developers they don’t pay.
  • Alibaba has 4.2 million factories they don’t own.
  • Facebook has 1.2 billion content creators.
  • Amazon sells almost every author in the world.
  • WordPress has 75 million journalists writing for them.
  • eBay doesn’t own any good it sells.

The web has always been about leveraging cognitive surplus and idle assets. Owning stuff and paying creators is so Industrial era.

Now let’s consider what people are really buying when they get an Uber: Certainty & Transparency.

Uber time to arrival

For me the thing that makes Uber valuable isn’t the nice black vomit-less cars, or the random risky strangers who drive them. It’s knowing the car will be at my house in 6 minutes. It’s far superior to whenever I order a taxi – they still to this very day have the gall to tell me they’ll send the ‘Next Available’ – which does not help me get to the airport in time. I’m also a fan of just leaving the car without having to waste like 7 seconds swiping a credit card to pay. Yes, human laziness knows no bounds. Interestingly, the key features that make it work could all have been done by the taxi industry. But heck, why would they do that in monopoly conditions?

As for Airbnb, I’d much rather stay in a hotel when travelling on business. Hotels are far more convenient and have a number of services that matter when travelling for work – like late night burgers and concierge. But whenever I hear someone talk about their Airbnb experience, it’s never about convenience and amenities. And it’s not always about price. Most often it is about the story of where they stayed and how authentic it was. Airbnb sell the story of accommodation. They localise the experience for strangers.

Yes, it’s quirky that many big businesses connect things rather than own them, but it’s more important we understand what their customer advantages really are.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

Crazy facts from the technium to blow your mind

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Kevin Kelly

What’s the technium you ask? Coined by the great mind of Kevin Kelly he defines it as the human-technology relations and argues that technology is the emerging seventh kingdom of life on earth. A giant force which is “the greater, global, massively interconnected system of technology vibrating around us.”

Wow, so now we know what that is let’s consider these facts:

  • There are 5000 naturally occurring minerals. Yet, we’ve manufactured over 1000 artificial minerals.
  • We’re reshaping our geological world and currently lay more than 10 billion tonnes of concrete per annum.
  • During early 2000’s internet cable was being laid faster than the speed of sound (343 meters per second)
  • Information is growing at 66% per annum. The worlds store information doubles every 13 months.
  • All the sensors we are developing for the Internet of Things (IoT) replicate & improve human sensing capabilities. All just sense what humans can sense.
  • In 2008 there were already more things than people connected to the internet.
  • There’ll be more than 50 billion such sensors in the next 5 years.
  • We don’t know exactly how many miles of road we have, how much fresh water, or how many schools because it’s all changing so fast.
  • 75% of all energy consumed on earth is to the support the machines we’ve made (that power the technium), rather than us humans directly.
  • 7% of the energy we use is just for running the internet.
  • When visualised, the nature of this change represents a nuclear explosion.
  • The technium itself (the system we live inside of) is a super organism, much like the Great Barrier Reef. We build and maintain it, and also depend on it for our own existence – but we can’t really see it or know how it operates.

We are literally building a computer around ourselves – a super technological organism.

It’s worth listening to where this information comes from – it will open your mind to the world you are actually living in – The Technium Unbound podcast here. 

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

The secret benefit of reading books instead of articles

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Book shelf colour coded

The secret benefit of reading a book instead of the web is this:

It makes you stay inside an idea much longer.

While I love reading on the web (and writing on it) as much as anyone, I know I always get more out of a book than I do from articles. The length of time it takes to read a book means we have to digest the concept over a longer period. This then affords our own imagination the time needed to converge their ideas with our own experience. It’s when these two things collide that we build a better brain.

Books are the slow food of reading. So please turn off your device, stop reading this and go feed your brain some book broccoli. Serving Suggestion below.

Oh, and you can read my book for more Sammatron goodness.  

The ultimate technique to pitch anything

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Startup Pitching

Pitching is one of the most important things we do in life. Many of the conversations we have are in fact, simple little pitches to others to get an agreement on something so we can move forward together. So it makes sense that we do it well. A pitch was the first thing you did when you were born. And you probably pitched someone in your family as recently as today. We’re all able to do it, but we sometimes freeze up in a business context.

In order to do it well all the time, we need to make it as human as possible. It needs to be a normal conversation. The technique I use to pitch is the same way you’d explain something if you didn’t regard it as a sell job. It’s simple and clean and it goes like this:

My Pitch Method:

You know how …

Well, what we do ….

In fact, …

We simply finish each of these sentences. You can see, it feels human and natural. And it is a super easy format to remember. The end of each sentence then informs the listeners of our proposition:

You know how … (the problem)

Well, what we do … (The solution)

In fact, … (insert crazy statistic or fact)

The closing fact should be the kicker on why this is a valid opportunity, or show progress that gets people excited. It works on pretty much anything. here are some examples using it on brands you know:

Tesla

You know how cars are a major contributor to carbon emissions and climate change. Well what we do at Tesla, is build all electric cars which outperform petrol cars on speed, safety and style. In fact, we have over 400 charging stations across the USA so you’ll never pay for petrol again.

Ikea

You know how stylish modern furniture can be expensive. Well what we do is sell furniture, flat packed for you to put together in the home to keep the costs way down. In fact, we’ve become the worlds biggest furniture company serving over 700 million customers just last year.

Google Self Drive Car

You know how millions of people die in road crashes each year, and that 90% are caused by human error. Well, the Google Self drive car solves this problem by replacing human drivers. In fact, our self drive cars have done over 1 million miles without a single incident.

Uber

You know how ordering a taxi is risky, because they say they’ll send the ‘next available’, well what we do is tell you exactly how many minutes it will be before the car arrives. In fact, if we can’t make that promise, we’d rather tell you that no cars are available. This has made us the biggest ride sharing service in the world.

You can see that these brand pitches different solutions and benefits could’ve been used. As the person giving the pitch, it is our job to give the angle we think will be most compelling to the person hearing it. We also have to remember that a good pitch isn’t about getting a decision, it’s about inviting a conversation on the topic. An invitation to explore.

The Pitch    ->>>    Engaged conversation on the topic

Now here’s an example of how you might use it with a family member on a household decision:

You know how we cook at home every night and it is exhausting, well there’s a new pasta house that has main meals for $10 each that we can go to. In fact, it could even be cheaper than buying the food to cook at home.

So there you have it. My simple pitching method which can be used in almost any situation. Practice it in life, and on brands you know and watch the dramatic improvement in your results. You can thank me later.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

Your startup needs to get punched in the face

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Screen Shot 2015-12-05 at 11.34.46 AM

Heavy weight thug Mike Tyson has some advice for startup founders:

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

Your plan is a fantasy, the ring is the market. Once you enter the market you will get punched in the face. Even though it hurts, this punch is your friend. It serves reality and you’ll have iterate, fast. Now the truth is here it is time to dance around the ring, gather some strength, dodge the next punch, find some space, and throw a couple of jabs. You might even make a few connections.

As entrepreneurs, we have to get in the ring and get hurt. We have to survive in the real world. Not hide in training…. planning for some imagined reality, working on the product, perfecting everything so it is just right. Things will never be ready. The best laid plans are those made during the battle.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.