Category: startups

Singapore Series – episode 1. Licensing Gone Wrong

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I took this photo while in downtown Singapore.

 

 

While it’s clear that David Copperfield & Criss Angel are possibly two of the strongest ‘brands’ in the magic world, its not clear why they’d license their names and risk their personal brand equity?

 

They way start up blog sees it is that this start up magician is the only beneficiary here. Magic Box will either be great or no so great. Either way, Chris & David lose. Their either build someone elses brand, or dilute their own.

 

Or even worse, this is a non sanctioned pass off with no revenue sharing going to David Copperfield & Criss Angel.

 

Most licensing agreements have a winner and a loser. And the loser is usually the party whose brand gets over exposed. The coat tail raider often wins.

Singapore Series

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

On a recent business trip to Singapore I was surprised at how much cool stuff I saw. Not just start ups, but general marketing insight. It’s my general belief ( & many others) that globalisation has taken some of the joy away from travel. It’s harder to find new stuff, different concepts, and fresh ideas. Things just cross boundaries so much quicker now with the advent of $10 air tickets and the web.

But to my pleasure, it’s still out there if you look hard enough. So enjoy the next week’s blog entiries sub branded the “Singapore Series”.

Singapore personified!

By the way: How many brands are positively identified by their employees?

Flying under the radar

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Flying under the radar – actually has some real meaning. It was once the optimum strategy for a spy plane to fly as high as possible. This was thought the best way to get ‘out of reach’ of enemy and radar. The U2 spy plane did this by flying above 85,000 feet. When one was shot down during the Cuban missile crisis some smart people decided to flip their thinking.

 

 

 

The solution was so obvious in hindsight. Simply fly very low where the terrain blocked radar effectiveness. Underneath the radar!

 

Maybe it’s time to flip your thinking to solve today’s business problem.

 

if vs when

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Here’s a simple idea for the day.

 

Remove the word ‘if’ from your vocabulary and replace it with ‘when’ while talking about your business, brand or startup.

 

It’s simple to do and starts the chain of possibilities, ideas and belief. Sounds silly – actually works.

 

Technology transfer

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Meet Trev.

 

 

Trev is small.

Trev doesn’t like going much faster than 120km per hour.

Trev only fits two people and two bags.

Trev can only travel 150km before he needs a recharge.

But Trev is efficient. He only costs 1.1cents to recharge per kilometer. Trev makes petrol look silly.

 

Here’s the thing. Trev is only possible because of advances in mobile phone battery technology. A classic case of technology transfer. The question entrepreneurs should be asking is what technology can we utilize from industries adjacent to us?

 

You can read more about it here.