Do, mistake, learn, improve, repeat.
Do, mistake, learn, improve, repeat…
Do it fast. Continue in perpetuity.
The key word is the first one – ‘Do‘. Unless we take action we remain largely philosophical about what might happen. It’s only when we act that we find out the truth and formula of startup success above can eventuate.
Really the title should say “people” – we don’t do business with customers, it’s the greatest lie of all time. People trade with people. But I just gave it that title so I could teach people this who stumbled upon this blog entry…
So here’s how we do it at rentoid.com
We have a live chat session with our people. Answer all their questions, assess their concerns and just get to know them. Tonight we are doing it at 7.30pm Aust Syd / Melbourne time.
Go here to log on: http://rentoid.com/live
You can see the startup blog author in action live and see if he (me) can deliver it all live. So tune in, tell your friends and get a shout out!
While discussing marketing theory with a colleague from Melbourne University – lecture Jeremy Apsey, he came up with a cool quote:
“Theory is nothing more than the accumulation of our historical knowledge.”
He then went onto say… “We need to be able to think both ways, theory into practice and practice into theory”
As entrepreneurs I’ll word it as follows:
‘We must be able to think then act, as well as act then think’
When things are going well – know one ever asks any questions. Whether it’s school work, your job, your business or startup. People don’t ask analyse how they got there. They’re just glad they are.
What this means is very important for entrepreneurs:
It is possible for things to work and not know why they did. Especially if it’s our first shot at it.
Sure, we may have had a strategy, plan or even defined tactics – but they may have nothing to do with the success we achieved.
photo by Aviva
This is why mistakes are rad. It’ easy to find out where things went wrong. It’s as simple as crossing that idea off the list and moving onto the next one. We learn from mistakes, rarely success. In addition they teach us important entrepreneurial habits like tenacity. Making them also means we are not suffering from inertia.
The best days for entrepreneurs are the ones when we make the most mistakes.
How many mistakes did you make today?
Since we’ve been going through a massive growth spurt at rentoid – I’ve been thinking about the skills which matter. The skills which will take us from start up – to business. That stuff that happens after we’ve proved our concept and people are getting involved in what we do. And here’s my conculsions:
1. Project management. We must get the stuff done we’ve been talking about with our customers quickly. They haven’t got time to wait for us to get our act together. We must deliver our promises, or lose them forever.
2. Leadership. Keep the team inspired and motivated, while maintaining the culture we believe in and have already created. Just because we are starting to achieve our goals doesn’t mean we need to invent systems, create paperwork and lose trust for each other. This is where we prove there is another way to do things in business & life.
3. Maintain Momentum. Go ‘back to back’ in sporting parlance. The ability to maintain public interest and is difficult after unpaid national TV coverage. We’ve got to keep the tap running, keep communicating and getting coverage. This is where communication frequency becomes way more important than communication depth.
Another great way to keep ’em talking about rentoid?
We make sure we deliver on all the stuff we said we’d do – refer point 1.
I took this photo in a local mall in Melbourne on August 9th – The coldest part of winter.
Anyone who lives in or has been to Melbourne knows it’s still very cold until November. Yet the clothing retail chain above already has summer clothes only in the display window. And they’ve already started their winter clothes clearance – in the middle of winter!
The top temperature on said day was 11ºc / 55ºf with snow falls down to 400m.
Here’s the weather forecast for Melbourne for the coming week:
This is retail gone mad – for a few reasons:
They are selling their ‘winter’ stock ‘during winter’ at a 70% discount?
Consumers don’t care about their buying seasons, just what the weather’s like – right now.
Melbourne people don’t care what the weather’s like in Queensland.
People’s lives are too busy to buy clothing 4 months in advance.
They are letting their supply chain get in front of what consumers actually need and want.
No prizes for guessing the store was empty.
If we buy hot soup on cold days, and ice cream on hot days, why should clothing be any different? It’s not. And is less so, as time becomes the finite resource.
If you’re a start up in the retail arena.
Startup blog says: make your range, match the ‘real’ world. You’ll be far ahead of any retail chain.
This brillaint piece of communication by bringtheloveback summerzies the biggest opportunity for startups in the last 100 years. Small startups and entrpreneurs can have the conversations most large companies refuse to have. Or do in an overly moderated environment – which just doesn’t work.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZDXfB0Rd4Q]
In truth most large dominant companies from the old production based economy are probably too scared to have a warts and all conversation with their people. The truth might get out. Truths like, companies reducing the quality of ingredients to keep prices low.
In fact they never did. They investigated, researched and even spied. Maybe they should have just listened and conversed.
Thanks to Ross Hill for the link!
