Tag: entreprenuership

The truth about secrets

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Secrets kills us. They eat at our souls and disrupt our emotions in a negative way. We very rarely feel good about secrets because by nature we are social creatures that rely and need each other to survive. Collaboration is what put us atop of the food chain and that means we must share. I’m certain the feeling we often get when we hold secrets is our genetic code telling us that secrets are not cool and generally don’t lead to ideal outcomes.

So it got me thinking about the nature of secrets and the different types of them.

There are many types of secrets, but these 2 are interesting:

  1. Secrets that hide things we have done for fear of judgement or persecution.
  2. Secrets that hide things which are ideas we want to benefit from at the exclusion of others.

These are 2 types of secrets we should avoid.

The first one should be avoided because we shouldn’t do anything dodgy, and we shouldn’t be ashamed of anything that is out of our control.

The second is counter intuitive. Our emotional need to share secrets is our DNA telling us it will create more for everyone. A shared idea can often be improved, a shared idea creates a team to build it, a shared idea increases access to resources, a shared idea creates a market place and a bigger pie for all. Stealing ideas is not the same as stealing chestnuts. If we exchange ideas, we both end up with more ideas than we started with.

Startup blog maths:

Sharing > Secrets

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Why speed wins

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

In start up land the most important thing we can do is do things fast. It’s the opposite of the perfectionism we learn in graduate school and large corporations especially as it pertains to marketing.

Here’s why:


So the startup blog explanation of my above chart goes something like this:

No project, task or strategy is ever perfect. Even if we spend a large amount of time developing it. At best it will be around 90% of what we need or imagine. If we cut the available amount of time in half (which is this example is 6 weeks) we may be able to achieve 70% of the desired outcome. But what option 2 presents for us is the ability to learn and revise quickly. In fact we can launch another version (version 2.0) of said project for another 70% progression.

The net result is pretty simple – we’ll be a progression of 140 vs 90. Pretty simple. And in startup land the reality is we often don’t know how effective something will be until it is implemented, and from here the lessons will emerge. In addition it moves us up the learning curve and in all probability the next implementation will be far more effective than the first.

The other fact we have to consider is that speed is important for our customers. They like to see progression, even if it is less than perfect. They know things are improving and that we are making stuff better for them. It’s also far less confusing to deal with incremental consistent change than it is a total re-design. We also remove the risk of better ideas and methods putting a kibosh on doing anything at all and creating inertia.

And this is why in startup land, speed wins.

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Dubai Series: Hotel Sampling

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Once you pass through the customs area in the Dubai International Airport they have a very interesting area reserved for Hotels as can be seen below.

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The area has all of the 5 star hotels from the city represented. The general idea is that each hotel has a mini foyer with the exact styling and ambiance of the actual hotel. The mini foyer has Video footage of the hotel, details on menus and hotel services, samples of the haute couture fragrances in room and some even have masseurs for weary travelers to encourage / reward bookings. Concierge salespeople are there to explain the benefits and convert the sale. For those already booked they have a comfortable waiting location where they serve refreshments until the hotel driver arrives.

A simple idea, but one which makes sense for such a burgeoning metropolis and shows that even the oldest industries can innovate too.