This advice matters to everyone: Favour action over all things.
For the uninitiated: This speach was given by a famous football coach in Australia during an AFL Grand Final (think Superbowl / FA Cup). With passion he emplored his campaigners to just get out there and do whatever they could. The end result being a victory – or the ability to say ‘at least I had a go…’
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9db1GgNtCKw]
I get told all the time my blog is quite good. I’m chuffed. It’s nice people get something out of it. And yes, it has grown in the almost 3 years it’s been going. Grown from 10 readers a month to about 30,000. And No.1 on Google for ‘Startupblog’. But I don’t promote it hardly at all, other than a tweet here or there. I’d rather people just find out. And here’s why:
As soon as we start creating stuff for the ‘popularity contest’ we start to compromise what we do. We’re doing it to win, rather than for the love of creation. Our work suffers and we start making it for ‘them’ instead of ‘us’. Slowly we evolve into a qausi-politician trying to please everyone and yet stand for nothing.
This sounds counter intuitive to all the marketers out there…. but, the world has changed. We used to make stuff for them, round the edges and then sell to everyone. But now they’ve already got more stuff than they need – physical and informational. So what we have to do now is create stuff we love and let the people catch up. The people who are in fact ‘us’. Our people, not them.
I’ll be blogging 10 years from now (among other things) and if I stay the course, they’ll keep coming, like they already have. The only promotion this blog will ever get is the Kudos it deserves from those who discovered it… and then spread it. Given I don’t advertise on it, or make a living from it – that’ll suit me just fine. My main goal is to take pride in my content – not my ranking.
Entrepreneurs ought there – create something you’re proud of.
…fix them straight away.
Sure it will cost you more
Sure the budget doesn’t allow
Sure it was unexpected
Sure you can leave it for a while
But the reality is this – when we leave things broken, we leave a part of ourselves broken. it messes with the mind, and it effects our persona, our personal brand and our confidence levels. In short it messes with the mind. Show me a person with a banged up car or an unruly house and I’ll show you someone whose finances are not in order.
Don’t mistake what I am saying here. I’m not talking about wealth, I’m talking about attitude.
The attitude of people who fix stuff – is the same as the attitude of the people who usually find success. Success doesn’t tolerate letting things deteriorate – success always repairs anything which is broken. Success knows that it permeates the right culture and it makes us money in the long run.
I really like the idea of ‘small’ – Making the macro, micro. 12 secondsTV does it: www.12seconds.tv
As far as marketing insights are concerned it proves that categories don’t converge – but split.
We recently used it for rentoid to kill a few birds with one stone:
The cool thing is that we’ll publish what people think about rentoid good and bad – so then we have to act on any mooted improvements. Check it by clicking here:
So in the spirit of involvement – I’d love to get a 12 seconds.tv spot from the startupblog crew – ‘yes that means you’ with any piece of business / entrepreneurship or life advice you feel approporiate.
Put your 12 seconds link in the comments and I’ll put it up as it’s own post with a link to your blog / startup / business or whatever.
Get on it.
Unless you are from the US – you have never even heard of any of the 10 oldest businesses in the USA. Nope, not one. There’s not a sexy brand among them. They include boring industries like, banking, ingredients, manufacturing inputs and insurance.
You can check it out by clicking here.
The important insight for Start Ups and investors is this:
The boring stuff is almost always more profitable than the sexy.
Why: Because exciting, sexy stuff attracts lot’s of competitors and people want to play there. They want to play there because it’s fun, it’s in the papers, it’s featured in business forums and leverages over-riding social trends. Then it gets busy and the cream disappears – (read here abnormal economic profits) . It’s no different to the house prices rising in popular suburbs and the yield declining. Simple economics discovered centuries ago.
So what? It’s vital we know the difference between sustainable & exciting. The most important factor for survivial is profit – end of story. Sure, profits can be made in any industry, but chances are there’s more profit in the areas everyone else forgot about.
It’s refreshing to see a startup business which is a simple idea. It’s real bonus when the entrepreneur has also managed to keep it Single Minded and in line some macro trends:
And with that some startup blog kudos goes out to www.sendwithstyle.com
They’re product line includes personalised stationary and stamps – which are just so retro cool and old world.
In an information world we really value the stuff in our learning toolbox. Our Books, blogs, Twitter, Newspapers, Podcasts, Ted talks and even our note pads. There’s no doubt this simple business will really click with nerdy blog reading types – yes us!
Here’s what I like for an entrepreneurial perspective:
– Low start up costs
– Very targeted to the info hungry
– It’s about ‘personal branding’
– They’re open to the world
– There’s no tricks
So I had to get my own stamp. Which I now put on the front of my Moleskin notepads. Which keep as a thought almanac. I also went and stamped all the books in my library.
If we value our thoughts – we ought value how we document them.
Rambo First Blood part 1, is a movie all entreprenuers ought invest 2 hours watching.
The key lessons is simple: The ultimate resource is creativity. It’s game winning. John Rambo single handedly defeats an army choc full of resources, through ‘creative boostrapping’. Bootstrapping which then invented new tactics the competitors didn’t even consider. Key words that come to mind are; Insight, Passion, Risk, Mind Control, Tenacity, Belief and Courage. This film should be the first lesson in any entrepreneurial learning forum. Be like Rambo and win.
25 years on this film still rocks. There are so many cool scenes I won’t ruin it here by explaining them. Better yet, go watch it, then tell us your favourite scene and why in the comments below.