Category: Launch

Theories in action

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Here’s a link to my new startup www.rentoid.com:

rentoid-logo-blue.jpg

 

As the name would suggest it’s a renting portal. At rentoid we:

  • Unlock your idle assets – like ladders, bikes, lawn mowers, anything…

  • Connect communities & satisfy your temporary needs

  • Reduce unnecessary consumption

Laymen’s terms: We rent stuff off each other. That’s it.

 

The About & FAQ’s will fill in any gaps. Why not check it out? It’s free to join and list as many items as you please.

 

As the blog title suggests, a few of my theories in action.

The problem with strategy

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

The biggest problem with the perfect strategy is this: It’s pretty hard to implement the plan, maybe impossible. That’s why business plans can be overrated. The simpler the strategy and therefore plan, the greater the chance of implementation.

 

Here’s the start up blog view:

Create a 1 page mud map, and make up the rest as you go along. That way we just might keep up with the world.

Brand mythology

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Have you ever heard the story of how Ebay started?

pez.jpg

The short version goes something like this; Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar built an on line auction facility to help his wife sell and trade her Pez dispenser collection. I believed this until yesterday  when I read an excerpt from the Adam Cohens’ Ebay book, the perfect store.

 

Turns out Omidyar is a bit of a nerd (was there ever any doubt?) and a perfectionist who wanted to build a perfect market, with open bidding and perfect information. He didn’t just stumble upon Ebay.

If we can ignore the irony of perfect markets built on a PR lie, it’s a pretty cool story which has created some sustaining brand mythology. Another brand which has a leveraged a consumer myth was Redbull; speed in a can, illegal in some countries…’Gee, it must work’

If you can build a story at launch, it might just be the exposure your start up needs to get it off the ground.

Radvertising

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

FORD UTE ‘UTOPIA’ COMMERCIAL
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZWh5R-vHMk]

I’m not saying it is a great advertisment. I say this because I’m not going to rush out and buy a Ford ute, and neither are my friends – maybe the target market will? I am saying it’s virus worthy, because blokes will send it to their mates.

I saw this on youtube before I saw it on TV. The point for start ups is this. The main barrier to entry has been lifted – cost of communications. All we need is the right creative.

You are the brand!

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

What do these names have in common?

Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump, Martha Stuart & Arnold Schwarzenegger?

They all encompass their belief systems in what they do. They live and breath what they sell, do or communicate.

 

Oprah is the queen of emotive issues & media

Donald is the king of ‘real estate bling’ & making it big, the comeback kid

Martha is the queen of aspiration & homemaking

Arnold is Mr Olympia, come Terminator, come Governator

In short, they are the brand personified. They took what they personified and built a business around it.

It’s not so different with a start up. We shouldn’t pretend we have a brand in the early days. What we have is a product, service or name. Brands take years to build. In the short term the only brand we have is ourselves.

What we say, represent, believe and create will essentially be extended into our brand franchise.

This is good news. In the short term it means we’re in control of the initial brand experience, because it’s a personal one. One on one interactions with customers and colleagues. What they think of us, will be what they think of our brand and more importantly, what they tell others.

Fear of knowledge

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Probably the worst phobia entrepreneurs can suffer from is ‘fear of knowledge’

Epistemophobia, as it is clinically known sounds so ridiculous it’s hard to believe it exists. It does, and we all suffer from it to varying degrees. Sometimes we simply don’t want to change our world view.

As entrepreneurs we quickly learn that introducing something new to the world requires our audience to overcome their ‘fear of knowledge’. When people are comfortable in what they believe, they’d rather not know there’s a better way to do things, or a more logical thought pattern to embrace. Think about the PC and the years it took for it to penetrate households.  

Like consumers, we entreopreneurs don’t like to acquire knowledge that contradicts our goals, methods or ambitions either. The trick is knowing whose turn it is to ignore the fear of knowledge; ours or the consumers.

Newton’s Laws & marketing 2.0

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Physics and business once more…. Markets and motion.

Law 2: Force equals mass multiplied by acceleration The rate of change of momentum of a body is proportional to the resultant force acting body and is in the same direction. 

Start up blog interpretation; Your brand or start up will only grow by the force of the energy that you and your evangelists (passionate users / early adopters) put behind it.

If we want our start up to grow, that growth rate (or decline) will be directly proportional to the effort we put into it.

Conversely a competitor pushing us backwards with more force has the same impact.

A start up won’t just grow. Organic growth is a hoax. Organic growth is your customers or passionate users pushing it for you. In this case we’re lucky, we’ve managed to create an idea worth spreading…But it’s very difficult to do.

In the end, the growth is always our responsibility. We need to be the force acting and pushing.