Category: entrepreneurship

Inspiring change – Superhumans

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Changing someones opinion is one of the hardest things to do in business. Our world views are very often entrenched and shaped over many years. A consistent improvement in products or service over many years can often get the job done. But this is a long game. Every now and again someone manages to do it a couple of minutes. I have recently had one such moment personally with an advertisement. Watch this below and then I’ll bare my soul to you…

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

It’s kind of embarrassing to admit this, but before I saw this advertisement I had zero interest in the Paralympics. I honestly felt as though I was compelled to respect them. As though it was evil not to like the event or even care about it. But I didn’t care at all.

Fast forward 1 minute 30 seconds and I not only want to watch them this year, but have a new found level of respect and interest. It’s another great example of how we no longer buy what people do, but why they do it.

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Philosophy – Martin Potter

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I’m an avid surfer and in the pre-internet days I would video tape television shows featuring surfing and watch them over and over. I have over 20 of these 3 hour video tapes and can still remember every word of the dialogue off by heart. Today I was thinking about one of the tapes. It was from the Coca-cola classic held at Manly beach in Sydney in 1987. At the start they interviewed the top 5 surfers in the world. One of which included Martin Potter and he said this:

“The one thing to do in surfing is win the world title. And until I get it, I’ll be going for it. And when I get it, I’ll be gone.”

This statement is carved into my brain with blood. I’ve never forgotten it. It was just so succinct, said with such confidence, belief and direction. He even sounded cool as a cat when he said it. Two years later he blitzed them and won the world title. Shortly after that he left the circus that was the world surfing tour and went on to other things in the surfing arena. I always felt as though he wanted to prove what he was capable of, but not be a slave to the system once the game was one.

The question for entrepreneurs is what kind of a victory or proof point are we really after, and when is enough, enough? This is something we should know before we start or we may never know when or if to call it a day.

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Random things

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of random things I have done during my life:

Take gymnastics classes

Play Australian rules football

BMX race

High board diving

Build multiple cubby houses

Swim in the local river

Learn basic code on a 16kb ram TRS-80 computer in 1981.

Waste all my pocket money on video arcade games (think Galaga)

Water skiing

Mountain Bike racing

Had 9 broken arms (well the same 2 nine times)

Stand up comedy

Surfing

Learn CPR

Do Surf Life Saving (so I could get free beach accommodation)

Live on a farm

Live in 4 of Australia’s 7 capital cities

Collect first issues of magazines ( I have many, it was a weird long term investment strategy)

Poultry farming

Start and sell a clothing company

Build a raft that sank on it’s first outing

Learn to speak Italian

Learn to speak Mandarin

Be a Sales Representative

Be a shelf stacker

A valet parking attendant (still my fav’ job ever… could write a movie about it)

Write a movie script (it’s waiting to be made)

Perfect break dancing (all the while wishing I lived in the Bronx)

Work in advertising

Lecture at University

Eat only frozen food for 6 months (don’t ask)

Your list is just as long as this list. Your list is probably more interesting than this list. This list that we all have tells us a great deal about our desires, our passions, our successes and our failures. It shows how much we know and what we are capable of. If we write it and study it closely it often gives us clues on the things that really mattered, and might just tell us what to do next.

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Finding the connections

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I’ve recently happened upon a terrific documentary series from the 1970’s – which is up there with the best I’ve seen. It’s a series entitled Connections and was hosted by Science Historian James Burke.

In short the series is about the connections humans have been able to make with observations, science, mistakes and ideas. And how this has largely resulted in the civilized world we all enjoy today. While I’m sure all my readers like kinda nerdy stuff which this is, the reason I’m sharing it goes beyond that. This series is the greatest example I have seen of humans and our relationships with entrepreneurship. How our entrepreneurial nature has made us what we are. But the thing that really stuck in my mind was how technology is never about technology. It’s about discovery and putting all the pieces together in a new and interesting way. A timely reminder for the revolution we are living through right now.

You can watch the entire series here. Enjoy!

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Simple innovation & fear

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I met a really smart person yesterday. It was a stand up conversation after a business breakfast seminar where like minds often gather to share a few ideas before parting ways. In this short time, it must have been less than 10 minutes, she managed to impart upon me two very innovative ideas that I immediately wanted to share on startup blog. They may not be new, but she put a certain spin on them and I’m yet to see them in market. A smart brand that actually cares would find a way to implement them.

1. The Full Supermarket Trolley:

Supermarkets should have an isle for their most valuable customers – those with full shopping trolleys. Instead what they have is specific isles for their least valuable customers – those with hand baskets. What supermarkets should have is a policy that says if your trolley is full – you never have to wait behind a person with one or two items or a hand basket. Maybe you press a button for the ‘golden trolley lane’ and someone comes from out the back to help you or something. Counter intuitive sure, but this is the type of thinking real marketers do, while engineers and logistics managers chase efficiency based on non customer metrics.  While it’s easy to argue that it is all too hard, and that there is no quick way to scan all the items of a full trolley, it really is just old world thinking getting in the way of actually caring. In the age of ‘self scanning’ checkouts, surely every person using a trolley could self scan their items with a mobile scanner as they place them in the trolley.

2. The 19 hour Hotel Room:

We check into hotels in order to have somewhere to sleep and it is expected that this is largely overnight. But in this day and age, why should it be? With hectic business travel and strange flight times, surely the period of stay should be up to the customer. So why don’t any 5 star hotels allow you to choose the 19 hours you need? It is because they are more concerned with the rostering of their cleaning staff than they are with their paying customers. The regular business hours or work day is yet another legacy relic based on a passed era. Surely the staff can be reorganized around the customers?

Both of these are simple innovations we are yet to see. Both are technically possible. Both would create interest and attention. Both would reward valuable customers. Both are yet to happen because of inertia and fear.

A funny thing about these innovations and fear, is that the person who shared them with me didn’t want me to link back to her in this post. I immediately told her that I wanted to share her ideas with my readers and give her the due credit, but she didn’t want it. When I asked her why, she mentioned that some of her clients where large supermarkets and she didn’t want to upset them or big note herself. She said I could blog away, take the ideas….. And while I can see her point, and respect her decision, I can’t help but think that the world (and maybe her business partners) are missing out on more of her wisdom because someone just might be offended.

Ironically, the same fear that stopped her ideas being implemented in hotels and supermarkets, is the fear she is suffering from. The fear of upsetting the status-quo for a minority, at the expense of making things better for the majority. In reality almost all innovations have a cohort of detractors, it’s just the way it is. We should push things forward regardless.

Startup blog says: Ideas need to be free and shared, and if our sentiment is positive, nothing should stop us.

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Hitting 3 out of 10

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

In baseball a hitters average matters a lot. If you are hitting 100, it means that you score a run 1 out of 10 times you step up to the plate. If you are hitting 300, it means you are getting 3 runs per 10 steps up to the plate. In modern times, a season batting average higher than 300 means two things. The first is that you will be in high demand in major league baseball. The second is that you will be earning millions of dollars for that skill. Anything higher than .400 is regarded as an almost unachievable goal. The last player to do so, with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting championship, was Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox, who hit .406 in 1941, though the best modern players either threaten to or actually do achieve it occasionally, if only for brief periods of time.

It turns out that sales and baseball are very similar.

An average person will probably close a deal 1 out of 10 times. Someone who can get the job done 2 our of 10 times will make a very good living as a sales professional and earn an income well above the norm. If however, a person can get over 300 in selling, then they too will end up earning millions of dollars – just like the guys in the major leagues. All they need to do is find an industry that understands and appreciates the value of people who sell their wares. A big clue here is that it wont be a product that sells from a shelf. Another clue is that sales can be learned, it’s invariably a human skill that we all have, but very few people actually embrace their potential to do it.

When it comes to startups, we’ve all got to sell. We’ve got to sell our ideas, our passion, our product and our vision. We’ll even need to sell to our supply chain before we even get a chance to sell to customers. Success and selling are inextricably linked. No matter how advanced technology becomes someone has to sell it at some point, or revenue wont happen.

The thing to to remember though, is that we really only need a hit rate of 2 out of 10 to beat Joe Normal. Doing any better than that and we are on our way to stardom.

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The original pivot – Oakley

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

There’s a lot of talk in startup circles about finding business models and the idea of making a ‘pivot’ to an alternative idea, model or technology. The pivot being taking part of what’s working and moving more pointedly in that direction. In the old school pre-tech startup days we used to call it a related diversification or a simple direction change. In many ways it’s far easier to do when we are in the information sector as we are only moving ones and zeros as opposed to factories, retail outlets and customer segments.

Recently I’ve embarked on a new project (a passion play with no intended financial outcome). The project is to build the BMX bike I wished I had when I was a kid. I did have one, but not the mac daddy version… So now that I can afford it, I’m going to find all the parts I need and build it piece by piece. My research on the topic currently lives here.

One of the parts I need want is a pair of Oakley 3 handle bar grips (seen below) Which as far as I can tell have been out of production for 20+ years.

It sent me on a bit of a search around the web, which gave me some nice insights into Oakley Inc – the company. They are a classic example of how to pivot. They seamlessly moved into new product arenas which spoke to the same type of consumer, using their core competency. While you probably know that they went onto make sport equipment including sunglasses, sports visors, and ski goggles , watches, clothing, shoes and even prescription eye wear…. they started with a mad scientist in his garage (James Jannard) trying to invent a better rubber / plastic to make better motorcycle and BMX grips with. He ended up developing a material known as ‘Unobtanium‘. Their first ever grip was made of it… as are the Oakley 3’s above. It is still used today in many of their products and eye wear.

The really cool part is that James could see 3 important things:

  1. How else the material could be used in his categories of interest (Motorcross & BMX)
  2. Which other sports (many had consumer cross over) had a cultural & product usage fit for brand extension (Skiing, cycling surfing)
  3. How to cross fertilise design ethic and brand cache by focusing on multiple niche markets.

It really is a modern example of entering passion categories, entrepreneurial endeavor, elbow grease and marketing smarts that resulted in a 40 years of innovation. I happened upon this video that explains a little more on the history of Oakley (and the pivots it took) which I think is worth a few minutes of your time.

Thanks for the lessons Jim!

[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/18760239]

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