Tag: marketing

Salvage Bazaar

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I’m really impressed with new Melbourne Startup www.salvagebazaar.com

What is it? Salvage Bazaar is an online marketplace where you can buy and sell recycled and scrap building materials.

I’m impressed for a few reasons:

  • It’s a nice iteration for on line real estate market
  • It has strong eco / environmental credentials

It’s a very nice addendum  to the existing established real estate websites in most markets such as www.realestate.com.au in Australia.

It also has a strong play with the move towards gentrification of housing in inner city areas, as well as green / eco requirements emerging in the architecture scene.

But here’s the kicker: the founder Kim Pannan, has never done anything in the tech space before in her life, not even blogging let alone founding, designing and building her own commercial web business. The bit I love is that Kim was a graduate from Startup School. So a feel a bit like a proud uncle.

If you want to learn to what Kim did – who incidentally bootstrapped Salvage Bazaar on very little money, then you might want to grab 1 of the 2 seats left at the Melbourne Startup School.

Web everywhere

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Recently I was chatting with a Director at a global advertising agency about changes in the media landscape. The impact that the internet was having. She mentioned that the internet only affected a certain portion of the population – not all target audiences. The younger generation, the web savvy, the technophiles…

I retorted with the following:

Once upon the web was a thing you had to visit. First it was in military installations, then Universities. Eventually it was present in only very large corporates on selected computers. Later, on every desk in every company. Afterwhich  every computer in every home had it. And now it’s on our latops, in our cafes, in our pockets, it’s the GPS that directs our cars and powers the touch screen shopping mall directory. Next year all TV’s sold will be web enabled – 5 billion channels. It’s on every digital display in our lives.

It came to us, it removed the original demographic bias. The web is everywhere and permeates our entire existence. It has changed advertising forever.

The web is no longer and thing or a place. It is omnipresent.

Launch choices

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Seems there are two choices in launching a startup or brand:

1. Buy an audience. [quick but expensive]

2. Earn a following. [slow and cheap]

The problem with the first option is that we don’t get many chances to refine our stuff, and getting it wrong can end it all. The benefit with the second option is that it allows and encourages experimentation. And if we experiment enough, we might just be able dome some of the first option too.

Convention busting – retail

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Long held wisdom in the retail industry is that items must be displayed on shelves by category. Idea being that we know what thing we are looking when we shop. But what if we’re just browsing? What if we don’t want anything in particular? Bring on Smiggle – stationary retailer who display their range by color.

Eyeball worthy…. I better go check out what they have in purple.

They aren’t the only ones moving towards it, as  on line retailer etsy also display their range on line by color, with an amazing interface – check it out. It just works.

What other conventions need to be busted in your startup category?

Self taught

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

With the exceptions of reading and writing, all of the most important things I know (and can do for that matter) have been 100% self taught.

Marketing, Public speaking, Entrepreneurship, Motivating others, Creative writing, Financial Investing, Surfing, Gardening / Growing vegetables, Weight training, Riding a bicycle…. everything.

I think the best way to learn is by paying attention and being curious. Which always leads me to observing others, reading and getting out there and having a go at things.

Observe, Read, Try. Repeat.

That’s it. I find that when the desire is there, the rest comes easy. Which is why I’ve always done much better at everything outside of my schooling. Things for which I had real desire. The unfortunate thing about this ingredient, is that it is removed from most of the development & selection programs in modern society. Instead, we say ‘Rote learn this’, then we might let you do something you care about. One great example is that Architecture University studies require physics as a prerequisite, and yet Architecture studies don’t involve physics, and architects never do the engineering function in building.

Startup blog advice: Don’t let a terrible system, reduce belief in your own capabilities. The stuff that kept you out, you didn’t really care about anyway. It was a rule built by someone else to protect themselves. If you forge ahead and teach yourself, the right people will notice. They will come searching for you because they understand not just the importance of what your know, but the value of how you went about learning it.

Brand Trust

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Apple Inc sold an amazing 700,000 ipads on launch day. That’s around $350 million in revenue in one day. Most of the eager purchasers didn’t have full knowledge of what the gadget was even capable of. Which makes me ask these simple questions:

(A) Is Apple the most trusted brand in the world with loyalists? (B) And if so what creates such zealotry?

Startup Blog Answers:

(A) Yes, I think so.

(B) Abridged answer: Over delivering to expectations on multiple occasions.

The only other brands I can even think of people buying into without knowing what they are actually getting is the ever lasting life that comes with most religions!

Startup blog says: Over deliver, be patient and get compound returns.

Originality is for artists

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

There are no prizes for originality in business. There is no shame in copying others, sorry – idea borrowing. So many aspiring entrepreneurs say they are just waiting for a great idea. The original idea for them to launch a startup under. I was once this person too. And I was so very wrong. I learned the hard way by losing half a million in venture funding that originality is over rated. I’m convinced highly original ideas increase our probability of financial failure.

The startup blog view is this: originality is for artists.


Let me explain. People want change they can cope with, and so the business world (consumers) are most likely to reward incremental improvements. Ideas which people can cope with. Ideas that are easy to spread because the audience has a reference point. Something to switch to, a substitute. Yes, radical products and services can be a success, but they are so rare (especially with low and self funded businesses) that it is tactically foolish to chase them. We ought leave that to large corporations, and heavily VC backed startups.

It comes back to our objective – do we want to run a business, or be original? It’s rare to achieve both, so make the choice early and know whether you are an artist or an entrepreneur.

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