Spreading the ‘Green’ word

This is where I request the assistance of my loyal readers….

 

I’ve blogged about the recent launch of rentoid.

Rentoid is very green. The basic concept is to encourage people to rent items from each other, rather than buy them. Net result being same lifestyle with less consumption. The climate crisis is really a symptom, not the problem. Hence, I’d really appreciate a little help in spreading the green word on rentoid

The request is simply to help us get it on the eco radar / blogisphere / community. Sure there’s, something in it for rentoid – but there’s something in it for the community and the environement. Be sure to let us know or comment below on any ideas / actions taken.

Of course the acid test is how many start up blog readers believe it deserves the exposure. This will help us determine if we’ve got it right.

Top 10 movies for entrepreneurs

While goofing off watching cable, a great entrepreneurial movie came on – it reminded me of life in a cubicle. So here’s the startup blog top 10.   

  1. Startup.com (great documentary)
  2. Pirates of Silicon Valley (cheesy but insightful)
  3. Office Space (the motivation to escape)
  4. Fight Club (bootstrapping, viral marketing)
  5. The Corporation (don’t act like ‘em)
  6. 7 up Series (life’s journey, dreams & failure)
  7. Prison Break (strategy, contingency, alliances) only TV exception!
  8. Jerry McGuire (the courage needed)
  9. Wall Street (the game – politics of money)
  10.  readers choice…

Feel free to add what number 10 should be in comments.

(in case your wondering the movie was Office Space)

 

Attitude

We are modern day entrepreneurs. We cut new ground and bring change. We need to act a little bit like rockstars – rockstars of a new genre. Like rockstars we need self belief which borders upon arrogance.

We need attitude. We can’t fake it.

We can’t act like employees

Employees are conformists

Conformists never change the world

We’re bringing change

We are not conformists

Secrets

I used to think that it’s better to keep your business idea a secret. Then I read that “secrets kill you” in the Bootstrappers Bible by Seth Godin. It’s very true. You can get a copy here.

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Firstly – no one is going to steal your idea. The idea is the easy bit. The execution is the hard part. Truth be told it is more likely that someone else will start doing what you are if they don’t know it’s already being done.

 

Proof – how many times have you had a great new business idea only to find out it has already been done. Then you simply move on.

 

By keeping it a secret – it not only chips away at your confidence, you remove the potential for your circle to help you nurture it and bring it to life.

Critics & creators

At some point in your career as an entrepreneur (and entrepreneurship is a career, it’s just there’s no jobs available!), you’ll be told how why it’s a bad idea, an average launch…or just not quite right.

 

A simple response is this: It’s easier to critique than create.

 

I do it on this blog. I critique poorly executed marketing activities. We do this to learn and converse – which is part of the whole process. It’s what this blog is about. It’s a conversation on marketing.

 

But in the journey as an entrepreneur you’ll meet many who provide advice, but have never had the courage to pursue the path. In this situation it’s better to remember those who encourage, and forget about those who critique

statue.jpg

And this is why, in any city in the world there are no monuments of critics.

Overnight success

It’s seems facebook has taken the title as the latest overnight success. It’s a choice whether or not entrepreneurs become jealous or inspired. We ought to take the inspired route.

 facebook-mark-zuckerberg.jpg 

The thing about most overnight success stories is that they’re usually a few years in the making. And so it is for Facebook. Facebook actually launched in early 2004 and has been almost 4 years in the making. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t whip it together a few months ago. You can get a little history here.

What this means, is that you might be working on the next overnight success -now, it’s just that no one knows it yet. If so, you’ll be all the rage in 2010.

Stay the course. Be patient.

Clustering

Here’s a live example of niche marketing in action.

 

At rentoid we are currently implementing a niche strategy by ‘clustering’.

 

As blogged about, rentoid is the place to rent anything. To make this true, we need people to have a great user experience. Therefore we are focusing our global website on one town. The town rentoid was founded in.

 

We think it makes sense for these reasons:

  • We have many items for rent in this town

  • We can implement old school awareness campaigns like letter box drops, and hand outs at the local train station

  • We can leverage local contacts & friends

  • When people first visit the rentoid, they’ll see many items in ‘their’ suburb

  • People want to rent things locally where possible

  • We can rent items off new members and provide a great user experience

  • It leverages a growing sense of ‘community’ in small suburbs

  • It has a higher chance of users telling their friends – who also live there

  • Membership will grow geographically to the next suburb, and so on – virally

  • We can test what works on a micro level before investing on a larger scale 

You get the picture.

 

So our niche plan is to cluster geographically, and grow from their. I’ll let you know how it goes.