Category: entrepreneurship

Best domain of all time – www.✈.to

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I was enamored with this icon ✈ being used on Twitter recently. Which let’s, be honest has a level of awesomeness to it. I re-tweeted how much I loved it and this twitter discussion ensued:

It’s little ideas like this that are what I call ‘Micro-Awesome’. None of these things ever amount to success in startup land, but an attitude of doing little cool things do have a compound effect. And the proof is right here. Firstly, one of the Adioso founders Tom Howard had the nimble mind to get involved in the discussion we had about the ✈ symbol. Secondly I’m talking about it here and I’m not about to stop showing people the symbol URL hack any time soon. In doing so introducing more people to the good world of Adioso.

Try it – it works: www.✈.to

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10 years in Tech

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

A short review of some of the changes in technology in the past 10 years. Who has arrived on the seen, what’s different and new and how Moore’s law is still rapidly changing the world. Enjoy!

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How to make money on the internet

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

People got confused about how to make money out of the internet. They thought we should be able to demand payment. They forgot about demand and supply. Supply doesn’t automatically equal demand – especially financial demand. First value must be created, then it is extracted. It’s the opposite to the previous industrial world, in which we used to buy first and re-sell. There’s been an economic shift worth noting. Now it’s proving, then earning.

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Stop thinking about technology

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

We need to stop thinking about technology. Actually we need to stop using the word technology. A chair made from timber is a form of technology. Digital does not equal technology. There is no technology. Only evolution and an increasing rate of change. People just lives their lives with the things around them. If the things are good and useful (new or old) they will embrace them. Lots of these things happen to have micro chips in them. So what. Lots of things have timber and metal in them too.

What we need to be is anthropologists. If we truly want to understand we need to listen and observe without interrupting. If we interrupt, there’s a chance we’ll influence the flow of the previously reality – and change it. So we wont know the truth as it would have been before we arrived. The truth and flow of human life is technology agnostic and there is much much more to it than ‘things’ we use to live.

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Websites & The Network Effect

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I took this piece of copy directly from the 37 Signals blog. When it comes to websites, it’s what often the one thing we really need to break through. I also think it is why ‘free’ on the web just wont go away. It’s something web startups just can’t ignore.

The Network Effect: The network effect occurs when the value of a particular good or service increases for both new and existing users as more people use that good or service. It can also occur when other firms design products that compliment an existing product, thereby enhancing that product’s value. For example, the fact that there are literally millions of people using eBay is the thing that both makes eBay’s service incredibly valuable and makes it all but impossible for another company to duplicate its service.

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The truth about confidence

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Some one said these words to me the other day:

“It’s easy for you. You are confident being in front of people and speaking in public…”

I thought for a second and then told him the truth about confidence. Which isn’t verbatim, but it went something like this.

Confidence isn’t something people are born with. In fact, it doesn’t really exist. Confident people are those who are prepared to make themselves ‘uncomfortable’. People who are prepared to risk pain and or embarrassment to get something done. They embrace the risk of failure and get so used to failure, that people believe it comes easily for them. They assume it is ‘confidence’. But it’s just that these people accept the tension of being uncomfortable, as well as the potential for failure. And this is the truth about being confident.

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