Start up blog mantra:
Delay expenditure
Bring forward investments
Know the difference between the two. If unsure, ask.
Category: Innovation
Office space
Which space would we rather work in?
This..
or these?
* click to enlarge
(the leggo dudes don’t look very happy to me)
Sure some of these spaces are less efficient (read cost more). But it doesn’t have to be that way…. in any case, how cost efficient is an uninspired and bored workforce whose only thought is getting to the punch clock on time?
When our startups leave the kitchen, it doesn’t mean we need to act like the company we left.
Hema – Wow!
HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam.
Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands. HEMA also has stores in Belgium, Luxemburg, and Germany.
Take a look at HEMA’s product page (switch sound on first).
You can’t order anything and it’s in Dutch but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens.
Click here to see it.
Click on ‘nog een keer’ to replay, it’s worth a second look…
Startups – get Wow !
Brick walls
We were told that our business was a great idea. A super concept.
So we went for it.
Then we started work on the blue prints, and they looked great. Everyone said it was a sure thing.
So we built it.
Then once it was built everyone was in awe of how we took it from concept to reality. They told us we we’re sitting on a gold mine of potential, they starting asking us what life would be like when we made millions, if we’d still be their friends!
So we marketed it.
Then all new and potential customers loved it and told us how they’d buy it and tell everyone. sell it for us and keep coming back for more.
Then we realized there was a lot of brick walls between enthusiasm and reality. A lot of brick walls between a great idea, and that great idea becoming a great business.
There was a lot of brick walls. Walls which were hard to climb. Walls that almost ‘consumed us’ to the point of forgetting the easy, early days of enthusiasm.
These walls are put here to test us. They are asking us if we really want it. They are in fact our best friend. They make climbing over hard, and keep the pretenders out. Those who don’t really want it (maybe competitors?)
We ought thank the walls.
Decision time
Writer and pop culture specialist Thomas Hine reports the following: When consumers enter a supermarket they are exposed to 30,000 products in the average 1,800 seconds they spend walking the store.
Translation – any product only has 0.6 seconds to make an impression.
Imagine how little time we have before a web browser clicks away…so we’ve got to keep it clean.
The façade matters – a lot.
Exercise your mind
Really fit people seem to be good at all sports. Really talented at all the physical things they try. They seem to eat what they like at restaurants and yet remain svelte. How?
Here’s the trick. They don’t just play tennis, swim or jog. They do it all and more. They participate in many and varied types of physical activity and sport. So they exercise their entire body. They develop new motor skills all while refining the base they already have. They stay fit and get fitter.
Our brains work the same way. It gets fitter, stronger and more flexible the more challenges we give it. To just read about business and entrepreneurship only builds certain parts of our mind. Occasionally we need to stretch it in other ways. Read something different, watch a nature documentary, undertake some craft activity, do some gardening, go bird watching. Anything.
When we do this the interconnecting synapses in our mind will develop. We’ll then better cross fertilize our ideas and experience. We’ll open up the space for new solutions….
So please click out of this blog, and do something you’ve never done. Your mind will thank you for it.
What start-ups can learn from terrorsits
Extending on one of my favourite strategy topics – terrorism, click on the little Al Qaeda dude below to read my latest Australian Anthill rant!
Enjoy!