Category: Ideas

the old school

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I love lots of stuff from the old school, including but not limited to:

 

Old school break dancing

Old school pinball machines & arcade games (think Galaga)

Old school computers (think Commodore 64)

Old school rap music (think Grand Master Mel)

Old school Airline service & the general airport experience

Old school hamburgers from the local greasy Joe’s

Old school cartoons

Old school slow food & home cooking

Old school architecture and buildings

 

 

The truth is the new versions of these are often better, more advanced, cheaper and more useful. (some not)

 

The reason we love old school stuff more than the new versions is this:

The original version was ground breaking. And ground breaking is exciting. So it builds an emotional connection.

 

Startups out there – become the old school 20 years from now, by being ground breaking today.

Rentoid on techcrunch

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

We finally got ‘crunched’ – with a little spiel for rentoid on Tech Crunch.

In the first instance it’s given us a large membership boost and a very positive response. But it’s also given us our share of negative armchair experts, naysayers in the comments.

We say:

“That’s Ok – revolutionaries like us don’t care what naysayers think.”

But it’s a few thousand more people that know about rentoid.com too.

Actually we do care about what they think as it pertains to ideas to improve the service. We turn their negatives into a positive. But we always ignore an attitude which says something won’t work. It won’t for them – their attitude has already predetermined that!

In fact, some context here: We had many more positive comments and only a few negative. Also, both our membership and listings have been boosted as has our unique visiters today. But I thought I’d make this ‘blatant piece of self promotion’ worthy of a startup blog story by providing some insight!

You can check out the story here.

And add some comments here on the Crunch Base or on the story. We want to hear negative and postive sentiments. We want to improve our offer.

Losing the plot – MTV

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I found out the other day that MTV used to play music videos… here I was thinking that the ‘M’ stood for ‘Miscellaneous’

 

But seriously, they have lost the plot a little. It’s rare to turn it on and find a song playing.

 

It’s one thing to diversify revenue streams it’s another to forget why you are there in the first place. And this is why alternatives like VH1, Music Max et al had room to move into the market in the first instance.

 

I get my music from youtube now – on demand. Simply because none of the music channels on cable (pay TV) cut it anymore.

 

 

Sure, evolve, but don’t forget why your business / brand / startup exists.

Being liked

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Being liked gives you a shot at being good

 

They’ll never find out how good you are at…

 

Selling

Marketing

Coding

Inspiring

Directing

Funding

Presenting

School work

Entrepreneurship

 

…..if they don’t like you.

 

They wont listen to you, if they don’t like you. In start up land, we need to people to listen to us. Listen to our ideas. Listen to our vision.

 

Consider the following example: In a job or at school our manager or teacher didn’t like us, and we got poor results. Then the next  year we have a new manger or new teacher and miraculously the world turned in our favour. We got results. We didn’t change. We had the same skills, we had the same attitude and we had the same abilities. The people around us changed. We had someone who liked us.

 

Sure, it’s impossible for everyone to like you – but there are some things we can do to increase the probability of being liked….

 

…and the most important is ‘move on’ when we’re under tutelage of jerks.

 

 

 

Flexibility and entrepreneurs

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

The strategy is malleable. For entrepreneurs it must be. If it isn’t – revenue might stagnate, or even worse… not happen.

 

But the question we must constantly remind ourselves is this:

 

At what point does flexibility diminish our startup, concept or reason for being?

 

Many businesses end up being something totally different from what we originally intended. A good example is Flickr which started as an on line virtual world game. But unless we’re scientists, technicians or  inventors driven by the widget – does it really matter?

 

Although, we may never answer the question on flexibility, we must continue to ask it. That way we can ensure we’re carving a path which still leads back to why we started and we won’t just become an ‘adhocracy’.

Naming rules

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Firstly – there’s many great brands with average names and vice versa. One could argue if we have success under certain name it must be good. My view is that it’s the meaning you create under the name which counts.

 

A discussion on naming yesterday with a young entrepreneur inspired resulted in the following.

 

Ross said:

 

 A byproduct of my naming rules is that my (more recent) names are easy to track, in google or twitter etc. I can track “yabble”, but it is hard to track something like boost  juice. I think being able to track the conversation about your brand is going to be VERY important over the next few years as the  conversation moves even further away from places brands control (their feedback form, etc) and towards places like twitter where the conversation is hard and fast.

 

Then I added:

 

It’s also good to have a word you can own. What does ownership mean? Nothing exists which uses it. Which these days includes web and other forums you mention. A made up word is good, simple to say and it’s great if gets both the left and right brain thinking.

 

Tells us your startup name.

Game Changing

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Often a certain product market or category has a definite paradigm. Take eco friendly or hybrid electric vehicles. They always look like quirky space mobiles.

 

 (Toyota Pruis)

 

Elon Musk, one of the entrepreneurs of our time – has decided to be game changing instead. His new all electric Tesla Roadtster is anything but quirky and weird.

 

 

(Tesla Roadster)

Surely this design will get the blood pumping in any car enthusiast.

 

If you want your start up to be a game changer – ignore existing category expectations.