Startup Archives - Page 2 of 2

Startup School – 1 seat left

Posted on November 2, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

I’m very excited that Startup School Melbourne is this weekend. We still have a single seat left which is currently being warmed by this guy….

But we’d love to replace him with you. And if you need any more convincing then I’m pretty sure I’ll have done the job once you finish reading this blog entry.

Firstly – here’s a list of topics we’ll be covering in detail:

Idea Generating
Creativity in business. Creative thinking
Raising Capital
Art of Pitching
Legal tips, shortcuts and administration
Successful outsourcing (digital & production)
Building an international work force
Cash flow for startups & budgeting
Simplified project management
Personal & business branding
Selling like a guru
Generating PR and media
Building a Team

All of which is fully documented in a take home working manual so you’ll leave knowing exactly what to do and how to do it. Like I have.

We are also being joined by Yvonne Adele – Globally renowned Creativity and ideas guru!

You can’t learn this stuff in school, books or at University. And I should know as I teach Marketing at Melbourne University. You also get me as an on going mentor as a Startup School graduate with unlimited help in your start up. Which is incredible value give what most consultants (with less real experience) charge by the hour.

We are holding the event in the groovy boutique Lindrum Hotel. Where the space is great and the food and espresso is awesome. I tested it.

All of which is included in the price. You’ll be one of 10 people in an intimate learning environment. Not in a room full of people.

If that’s not enough , Startup School comes with a money back guarantee to blow your mind. I can say this because I know the 2 days will.

No, it’s not priceless – it’s priced at $998.

It will be the best investment in your entrepreneurship education you’ve ever made. it will make and save you thousands. This event is a one off, there is no next chance. If you want to chat about it – call me on the phone number in the right hand side bar of this blog.

Click here to book now.

(Seats still available for Sydney 21st & 22nd of November)

See you on the weekend, Steve.

Startup Blog Live

Posted on July 21, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

I’ll be doing a live chat on all things StartUp and Entrepreneurship this Wednesday night Australian EST at 7.3opm.

Problogger has inspired this idea from his session today – big ups.

I’ll be using the relatively new service www.twitcam.com – where you can ask live questions which I’ll answer.

It’ll be using my twitter sign in which is @sammartino

here is the url: http://twitcam.com/user/sammartino

Here’s where you challenge me, ask me, disagree with me for anything I’ve written on this here blog. Ask me questions about marketing, startups, outsourcing, getting to revenue, and generating massive free TV coverage. I’ve done them all successfully. These are the things you start up needs to rock the world. Looking forward to chatting with you.

Steve.

Consumer language & leadership

Posted on June 27, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

It’s one thing to be clear and succinct in our copy writing, and it’s another thing entirely to create language which means something to consumers. Language which paints a clear picture in the consumers minds that you can solve their problems. The best way to do it is to relate numbers to something we are all very familiar with…. ‘Join for the price of a coffee a week.’

In recent times some of the world leading websites have done this beautifully. Web businesses where scale matters to the end users, websites where this type of language can be the difference between a click out, and instant confidence.

Seek.com.au – A new job loaded every 30 seconds (Great this’ll have the job for me for sure…)

Elance.com – $201 million in provider earnings. (Wow, I will make money using this site…)

Flickr.com – 2744 uploads in the last minute (This is a safe place to store my photos…)

As soon as we read information like the examples presented above we know we are in the right spot. That we can do our business right there, right at that moment. And I know what you are thinking, this is the type of language that is limited to the successful few – not so, all it takes is a little bit of creativity to find some numbers which mean something….

We just need to work out what we are the most, best, biggest, quickest at, and there will be something. Maybe your site is the hyper local expert. Has more X from your city. The most members in Y community or the lowest click out rates for the industry? Even a micro website does something the best. And as soon as we work out what we are the ‘most’ at, we need to put it right there on the home page, no better yet, the top of every page on our website.

New York Series: Naming a Brand

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

This is the oldest marketing lesson in the book – What to call our brand. It seems it doesn’t matter how many times the story is told, but some businesses never seem to learn. Here’s a bad example of a clothing brand name which I saw in Bloomingdale’s today.

Yep, Acne. Which means pimples here in Australia. I’m surprised it even made it instore. So here’s the startup blog rules for brand names. Which I’ll keep short:

Try to invent a word that currently has no meaning. (our job is to invent meaning under it)
Ensure you can ‘own it’ globally. (No confusion, registerable)
Make sure it doesn’t mean something ridiculous, in your country or another.

That’s all that matters in real terms. Other rules are made up by people who are focused on stuff which doesn’t really have much to do with brand building.