Category: Innovation

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.

Reliability

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

4.17pm – Get email from friend advising of a small bug on rentoid.com

 

4.17pm – I email my main guy from my tech team to ask him to check it out  

4.21pm –  I receive email from my tech guy saying – bug fixed please check it!   

4.23pm – I email my friend advising that it’s all fixed saying – ‘my guy is quick.’ 

4.25pm – Friend emails me back saying “..Wow… that’s amazing.” Blog worthy!! 

As above.

Never underestimate the power strong relationships within supply chains. Strong relationships build efficient supply chains – not the other way around.

Cool brands

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Cool brands are put simply, just like cool people. It’s not so hard to believe when we consider that brands (well known ones) have personalities. Brands have values, share ideas and represent something.

Brands are just like people, the personification of things or services.

So what makes a cool brand? The same stuff that makes a cool person.

Cool people:

·        Cut new ground

·        Dress how they want

·        Don’t care about being popular, which is why they ‘become’ popular

·        Do stuff they like, not what others like

·        Have strong opinions and values, don’t care what others think

·        Don’t try and impress – so they do

·        Are confident and relaxed

·        Aren’t selfish, mean or vindictive

·        Are often compassionate and kind

·        Are easy to get along with (easy to use?)

·        Take a while to be understood

·        Get discovered eventually as being – thought leaders

·        Cool in a crisis

             fonzie.jpg 

Hey, there’s plenty more personifications where these came from – so be

like Arthur Fonzerelli and add them to the comments.

Fun parks and CBD’s

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

In reality there are two ways we can define websites. They’re either Fun Parks or Central Business Districts.

Startup blog definitions: 

Fun park: A website which is primarily in existence for the entertainment of its users. A place to enjoy, socialize, have fun and waste time.

Central Business District (CBD): A website which has a commercial function from it’s inception and is essentially there to assist people in trade.

Examples of each include:

Fun parks CBD’s

Youtube

Ebay

Facebook

Paypal

Flickr

Amazon

Hot or not

Lulu

Sure, there’s some overlap, but it’s the insights behind the two variants that matter.

roller-coaster.gif   businessman-drawing.jpg

Fun parks are ‘fun’. They’re easy to use and addictive in nature. They tend to spread quicker and go viral because there’s less risk. We’re not being asked to spend money, just enjoy the rides. So the fun park fills up quickly, gets popular and the owners monetize them by selling advertising billboards to all the eyeballs in the fun park. Eventually the park becomes overcrowded and people start to leave. They tend to have a rotating user base.

CBD’s are useful. Sometimes fun, but usually more serious and offer ‘value’. The commercial function is built in to the site, hence it doesn’t need to ‘monetize’ itself. People tend to investigate more, take longer to put their name down and join site. But once the do, they often become evanaglists and do the marketing for the site. They build more slowly, maybe take years, but usually end up with a more loyal user base. And rightfully end up more profitable. (profit as defined by yield)

Both are valid, both are evolving. If you’re a start up, it just pays to know which category you fit into.

Some stuff all web startups should know

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I’ve just read the following book. 50 great e-Businesses and the minds behind them. By Emily Ross and Angus Holland. It includes all our favourites over the past 10 years. Put simply it’s insightful.

 50-great-e-businesses.jpg

I really think you should read it, but if you’re time poor like most entrepreneurs here’s my bullet point summary for you:

  • More than 80% of these businesses were founded and run by non-technical people (web designers / coders etc)
  • Only a handful actually went viral and had overnight success
  • ‘Fun parks’ build traffic & members quicker than ‘real commercial sites’ (see next blog entry)
  • The majority did not have VC funding, fancy offices, or even staff. They bootstrapped.
  • Most took much longer than 2 years to build
  • The most unexpected and common thing that drove success was cold calling & collaboration 
  • The entrepreneurs behind them we’re driven by the idea, belief and excitement – not only the potential for big money.

Worth a read.

Innovative or annoying?

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Emirates Airlines have just announced they will be…

  

“the first airline in the world to commercially launch an inflight mobile telephone service, affording even greater convenience to passengers wishing to stay connected while traveling.”

Hmm… has one of the last bastions of peace and tranquility afforded by the lack of mobile phones has just been destroyed?

 annoying-cell-phone.jpg

  

The question is this: Which airlines will decide that many passengers will hate this ‘innovation’.

 

I can only see it making the traveling experience less pleasurable. On top of this Emirates has invested some US$27 million to fit its fleet with the AeroMobile system. On something which may actually turn away customers!

   

It’s also true that Emirates currently has 7000 calls made per month from its in seat phone service. Approx $200,000 revenue which will be lost every month.

With certain innovations smart startups will often need to decide which half of their customers they want to keep happy. It will be interesting to see how this one plays out.