Solid advice – David Clarke, Webjet founder

I was lucky enough to be on a judging panel at Melbourne University with David Clarke the CEO of Webjet. A $500m company which he founded, floated and built. After the students gave their business pitches (the subject was Internet Marketing) he gave a simple closing speech with some poignant insights. Here’s a snippet.

“The internet is very seductive and has the capacity to hijack rational thought. There is a real disconnect between the on-line and real world. The trick is to connect the two. And the way that is usually done is through speed and cost advantage.”

Amen.

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Viral marketing & probability

I’ve spoke before about the truth about viral marketing, and our probability of viral marketing success. So here’s some number to help us all quantify it with the viral marketing haven that is Youtube.

  • The average youtube video gets watched for 6 seconds.
  • 2 hours of video are uploaded every minute.
  • Almost half the videos on youtube get viewed less than 10 times. (1 in 2.4)
  • Only 0.25% of videos get more than 10,000 views
  • A random sample of 10,000 videos uploaded received the following: 2,226 videos with no views in their first month, 237 with 1 view, 158 with 10 views, and just 23 with 100.
  • Only 1 in 3.1 million videos will get more than 1 million views

Sure we can increase our chances by creating great content, and frequency of posts. But getting a viral hit is like winning the lotto. Which for startups means it’s fine to play, but not to back our future on it.

Don’t be this person.

I had this discussion yesterday. I walked past a hole in the wall cafe. (Tiny cafe which serves take away and stand up coffee in inner city area)

Friend: Wasn’t Joey going to open a business like that?

Me: Yeh, I remember him talking about it before I had even seen one of these in the city.

Friend: What happened to it?

Me: I don’t know, I guess he just didn’t get around to it in the end. Got distracted.

Friend: That’s a shame, looks like a good little business model. What’s he doing now?

Me: He’s in the same job.

Friend: Oh. Ok.

We keep walking …

hole in the wall cafe

Don’t be Joey. It at least try and fail. The old job will be waiting for you if you have to return.

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Decision intertia

I was having an interesting discussion with a colleague Cris Pearson (founder of Skitch & Comic Life) about pricing models on the web – as soon I’ll be changing the rentoid model.

I asked his some advice and his response was so simple it is till ringing in my ears.He said;

The more choices you give consumers, the less likely they are to do any anything.

Cross road decisions

He then went on to say ‘choose a price’ not multiple options, to avoid decision inertia. The question for startups is – what complexity barriers have we created which stop our people from buying from us?

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Twitter rules

These are the rules I have invented for myself for effective use of twitter. By the way, it’s pretty much the only social media tool I use these days. Mainly due to it’s succinctness. When it comes to Twitter this is how I roll:

– it’s my office water cooler. It’s the office conversations for us entrepreneurs

– it’s an advice forum where I ask my twitter friends (smart people I trust) questions I don’t know the answer to

– it’s where I’m not afraid to have an opinion even if it’s a bit risky

– it’s where I don’t do anything I wouldn’t do in the real world. The on line world is the real world

– it’s where I meet like minded people. First virtually, then physically

– it’s where I get last minute tips for restaurants, bars, coffee and traffic updates

– it’s where I document my life, verbally and visually via twitpic.

– it’s where my digitally inclined friends are. I’m glad they are there

– it’s where I promote my stuff occasionally, but this plays a minor role

– it’s where I share cool stuff I find, to the people who will care about it

– it’s where my reputation is on the line 140 characters at a time

– it’s where I won’t just make friends because you shook my hand (called following)

– it’s where I will become your friend if you engage in a conversation with me (called @ replying)

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Startup blog says: Twitter is a friend of the entrepreneur.

How do you use twitter?

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Kraft needs lesson in ‘Crowd Sourcing’

The bungled Kraft Vegemite iSnack 2.0 comes down to a really simple problem. Something they (Kraft) do all the time, and I should know, I used to work there.

They can never seem to fully embrace new ideas in their entirety. They want to innovate, but leave the final decisions to senior management. They tend ignore research, or take snippets from consumers. They only ever go half way.

Vegemite iSnack 2.0

Latest news is that they are changing the name – your jar might be a collectors item in 10 years!

What Kraft should’ve done:

Not ask for ideas to chose from, but let the crowd choose and vote – like Digg! It’s crowd sourcing 101. If you want an opinion from the crowd, then you’ve got to let them decide too. That way you have them ‘on your side’.  To choose a brand name for 48,000 is as pointless as letting a very uncool CEO decide. Which is ultimately what they did.

Startup blog says: Embrace the crowd entirely, or don’t bother engaging them.

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