entrepreneurship Archives - Page 46 of 235

The Potential Employee Flip

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Steve Sammartino

I can remember a time when it really mattered that you stayed in the same industry. If you wanted a job in consumer goods marketing for example, it really mattered that you had experience in consumer goods marketing. If you wanted to transition industries it was an incremental process. You had to eek your way across to new ground. Small step by small step. They wouldn’t let you play in their playground unless you had played their before, or at least a very similar playground. Sadly, our first job often defined us for much of our career. An potential employee needed a logical straight lined career flow.

I’m glad to say those days are over.

That attitude was one of protection. It’s a guild ethic, where profits are a function of a knowable, existential system. One that must be protected at all costs. But when a system breaks down, the smart players look for a new set of functions. A new attitude and ideas from an unfamiliar realm. If you’re in the middle of career transition, or wanting to break into a self determined entrepreneurial realm then there has never been a better time in history to do it. It’s damn exciting.

The best CV, or should I say personal brand isn’t one with a consistent story line. No, today it needs to be a set of juxtaposed, unusual and significantly differentiated projects, industries and activities. One that shows experimentation and the ability to cope with non-linear complexity. Go ahead and get involved in some, we’re waiting for you.

Spears, Seeds & Spanners

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Steve Sammartino

Tomorrow I’m pumped to be doing a lightening talk at co-working in the lane way. Which is an uber terrific event being organised by the Hub Melbourne co-working space.

I couldn’t think of a better time to go on an anthropological journey through living and working spaces. The story is surprising and interesting. If you’re in Melbourne tomorrow come along and have a listen – I’ll be on at 12.30pm. No power point, no data, just idea exchange and human knowledge. This is the outline of my talk to whet your appetite:

– Spears

– Seeds

– Spanners

– Cars

– Cables

– Chips

– Challenge

I’m really excited about this one.

The Fish & Chip shop rules

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Steve Sammartino

There’s a lot of talk in Australia about what makes a good Fish & Chip shop. It just so happens I know the answer to this question, and based upon this tweet by Heath, it has become clear I must share my rules right here.

Fish & Chip Shop rules:

Cannot sell other food items which traditionally live outside of the Fish & Chip ecosystem. Namely pizza and kababs.
Cannot be attached to another retail outlet such as a Milk bar. Must operate single business operation.
Must have fish tiles on the wall.
Must have wall poster of local fish population.
Must wrap Fish & Chips in paper. Boxes are an unacceptable packaging material.
Must not provide tomato sauce. Only salt and vinegar. Tomato sauce you have at home or go without. It’s just the way it is.
Must sell pickled onions in a plastic tub on the counter, with the price written in a marker pen on the side.
Must have traditional retro cans of beverage for sale in the drinks fridge such as Creamy Soda and Passiona.
Drinks fridge must have a sign which says: “Please make selection before opening door”.
Must make hamburgers and include a hamburger with the lot which has the options of beetroot, egg and pineapple.
Hamburgers must be built on the grill while they cook by an expert burger cook.
Must be run by hard working immigrant Greek family – the inventors & stalwarts of the local Australian fish & chip shop tradition.
Must have home made chips from own potatoes. Frozen chips from bag are unacceptable.
Must make potato cakes in house and dip in batter, just prior to dropping in deep fryer.
Must provide both fired and steamed dim sims. These of course, must come from the frozen bag variety.
Pricing board must be above the cooking fryers with prices written in chalk to allow for inevitable price inflation.
Must have retro 1980’s arcade machine with a single game such as Galaga or Pacman.
Must claim to be ‘local fish supplier’ of some random restaurant or pub in the local area.
Must be located in working class area, preferably in the Western Suburbs.
Should not be in obvious seaside location and counter intuitively be far away from waterway or estuary.
Must be closed on Mondays.
Must only be staffed by family members.
Must have wide multi coloured plastic strip at door entry – to keep flies out.
Must have cabinet at the front of the store window to display the ‘fresh’ fish.
Must have semi inappropriate Chiko Roll poster on wall.
Must sell ‘apple turnover’ oily apple pie with thick pastry.
Must sell banana and pineapple fritters.
Must wrap non-fried items in separate paper.
Must use metallic industrial sized salt shaker to deeply cover chips in salt.
Insert your rule here….

So why am I telling you this here on Startup Blog? Because sometimes the real innovation is about having the presence of mind to maintain a tradition in the face of change. While fish & chips might not be a thing where you live, I’m sure there is some kind of equivalent food or retail outlet. When change is the order of the day we can become worth talking about when we don’t change, or even bring back things of value which got lost along the way.

Leadership ironically, is sometimes about being a stalwart of the past.

Start with fiction

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Steve Sammartino

While many startups are new versions of existing ideas, in our quieter moments all entrepreneurs would freely admit they wouldn’t mind changing the world. Me included.

If we want to do this, then one of the most important things we can do is ignore the facts.

Facts specialise in yesterday. They are by definition an historical account of what we understood or what happened. Even science continues to disprove previously held scientific facts – the most recent being the quantum revolution, which among other things has proven that atoms can be in more than one place at the same time.

In startups we should start with fiction. An imagined world of what we’d like to see or create. We need to remember that the concept of ‘what works’ is by definition really, only what has worked. That ‘the way it is’, can only actually be about the way it was. And ‘the way to do it’, is really just a way in which it has been done.

Our job as entrepreneurs is really about turning today’s fiction into tomorrows facts. While this doesn’t mean we should go live with the fairies, it does mean we should sometimes ignore the so called rational.

Monday is your friend

Posted on October 27, 2013 by Steve Sammartino

I’m typing this on a Sunday evening. I’ve had various times in my life when I used to hate Sunday, not due to its own features and benefits, but because it was the pre-amble to Monday. Mondayitus. The dread for Monday was so deep and worrisome that it ruined the day before it which is was a free day. And what is more ironic is that I even liked Thursday more than I liked Friday, because Friday was too close to Monday. It is strange indeed how our minds can work. Sometimes it is worth listening to the strange.

Tonight, I went for a jog and I was genuinely excited about the week ahead and couldn’t even wait for Monday to get some of my projects underway. We are doing another world first for Tomcar Australia which will be global news. I’m attending the FML this Wednesday night to help jumpstart the maker movement in my fair city Melbourne. I’m working on a few Hackathons for some big corporates. I’m doing a new talk on the ‘future of work’, which I will deliver at the co-work in the lane way for the Hub Melbourne. Working on a new technology related property development. Shipping the Super Awesome thing & person from Romania. Working on my new book and might even be launching my new startup by the end of the week. I can’t wait.

I’ve decided that Monday is our best friend. There is nothing more telling in life than how we feel about it. Monday knows all. It is about time we started listening to our internal mental Monday sermon and tried and create a Monday that Monday actually appreciates. I ignored Monday for a while, but now I’m listening to it again and it is helping me smile.

As far as I can tell our Mondays are the ultimate arbiter of happiness.

Advice they'll never take

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Steve Sammartino

I was recently talking with a colleague from an extremely large corporation. We were discussing the relative cost of building smart phone applications. He went on to tell me how much they paid for the app after he gave me a demo on his phone. He then asked the price it should have cost to build it. I told him it should only be cost 5-10% of the price they paid.

Flummoxed he asked some advice on how to get things built for this much lower clip. Here is what I told him – Remove your logo from your business card before you get the quote. He laughed and asked if I was serious. I was very serious.

Sometimes the simplest advice is the hardest to take.