Category: strategy

Choose thrive!

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Dying

Thriving

Disposable

Permanent

Anonymous

Identified

Replace

Repair

Colleague

Friend

Volume

Value

Average

Atypical

Discounted

Premium

Ubiquitous

Scarce / secret

Processed

Organic

Spectate

Participate

As entrepreneurs we’re lucky to be living in a revolutionary period. A period where we can take the good from the Industrial Revolution (infrastructure & technology) and reject the bad stuff (directive attitudes & mass culture)

In relation to the lists above – startup blog strongly recommends your startup offer be placed in the right hand cloumn.

steve – rentoid.com

The 3 resources

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

The 3 resources which matter for start ups and any business are listed below:

  1. People
  2. Finance
  3. Technology

What do we need in each of these areas?

How do they interact in our area of business?

How will they change over time?

The questions about the 3 resources above should be in constant review. They remain in a constant state of flux.

If our current execution plan does not cover these areas and their interddence, then we’ve got a rocky road ahead – guaranteed.

rocky-road

Nature or Nurture?

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I noticed this morning that a particular area of my box hedge isn’t growing as well as other areas. See the two photos below.

hedge1 hedge2

In order to remedy the situation I thought about what the different things I could do:

  1. Ensure the poor performing area was getting enough water
  2. Make sure the soil wasn’t poisoned in that particular area of the garden
  3. Remove the weeds from the periphery
  4. Add some fertiliser to the struggling area
  5. Aerating the soil with a hoe
  6. Ensure the area is getting enough sun

In fact, I’ll try the methods above. What I wont do is ‘remove’ the box hedge. I really need it because it forms part of the garden perimeter. It provides the required symmetry. It’s an integral part of the garden. I will give it the extra attention it deserves, and talk to it. I won’t pretend it will fix itself, because I know that is just a fantasy.

So, why do we take the opposite view with our staff / employees or business partners? We rarely ask first what we can do, and most often just ‘cut them out’, get rid of them, or even chastise their performance, before we look at the reasons for it. Maybe they:

  1. Aren’t getting enough cash to do their part?
  2. Maybe their part of the organisation has structural issues?
  3. Maybe they have non functional ‘hangers on’ stealing time & resources?
  4. Maybe we need to invest in some training or programs to boost the area?
  5. Maybe we need to give them more space & freedom to perform?
  6. Maybe we are not providing enough reward & recognition?

You’ve probably noticed how many of our people problems have strong analogies to my box hedge. In fact, both nature and people, need nurturing.

Steve – founder rentoid.com

Tough times

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

In tough times, operating in a non revenue generating business gets difficult. All your business may even dry up.

73529439MN024_The_Town_That

It doesn’t mean these activites aren’t important, it’s more a reflection of human behaviour. Unless the link of the activity to the transaction is clear – it will get pulled. This is true for consulting, marketing budgets or even your job.  So the question we then must ask is this – how close are we to where money changes hands? Are we close to the transaction or in the backroom somewhere?

The further say we are from the money – the greater redundency exposure we have, in business and employment. Closeness to money is why many real estate agents who are often intellectual dodo’s still make big dollars. I’m sure you can think other examples too.

If you want to be an indispensable business partner in tough times, make sure you are close to the money.

Steve – founder rentoid.com

Our Job

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Our job as entrepreneurs is this:

“To organize the factors of production.”

To organize these factors from concept to revenue in perpetuity. This is our job in a ‘for profit’ organization. The number one challenge is not to become a factor of production. If we do this then we’ll never actually own a business.

business-people-on-grass

Steve – founder rentoid.com

Your worst nightmare

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

From a competitive viewpoint, imagine for a moment that our worst business nightmare came true.

Maybe Google decides to enter our market space. Or the Coca Cola Company launched a beverage with the same consumer benefit we’ve been bootstrapping. Or large company X decided to compete against “us” head on.

nuclear-explosion

Well – you’d be surprised how that feels. How it makes us react, and how it very quickly changes our perspective on what is the most important element in ‘winning’. In competing effectively for our share of wallet.

All of a sudden many of the projects we are investing our time on seem far less important than they were yesterday. Maybe that front page redesign can wait, maybe the shiny new web 2.0 buttons are a little less important. Maybe our packaging will do for now and quite possibly every project we have on the agenda, excluding customer ‘centric projects’ can be put on hold.

Here’s an exercise worth doing with your team. Act as if. Act as if it has just happened. Have an ‘emergency session’ with your team on how you’d react if a more well resourced, financed and well known competitor came to play. Build your battle plan. Once your battle plan is drawn up – throw out your current business plan and work on that instead. Because they are coming, especially if your startup is in a fertile consumer territory.

After the intital fear, most entrepreneurs just get inspired, get angry and get on with it. A good scare never hurt anyone.

Steve – founder rentoid.com

Belief – from ‘Tribes’

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I took this quote from Seth Godins latest micro book Tribes:

“Do you beleive in what you do? Every day? It turns out that belief happens to be a brilliant strategy”

This resonates with me because it will motivate us to find solutions that ‘non believers’ will be too inept, apathetic or bored to uncover.

Entrepreneurs ought launch something they beleive in conceptually, not just financially.