startups Archives - Page 29 of 117

The evolution of employment

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Steve Sammartino

Hunter

Shepherd

Farmer

Craftsman

Employee

Projecteer

While the flow of jobs through history here clearly simplifies the reality, but there is no disputing the type and structure of work we do is in a constant state of flux.

Soon employers will realise they don’t actually need employees. They will work out the thing they actually need is tasks completed, projects managed and leadership provided. And in a connected world they won’t need to pay for people to do these things 5 days a week – especially when large amounts of that time paid for are unproductive. What we need to remember is that companies pay people based on the value they deliver, not by the hours they are present. If a person cost X for 5 days work, but it really only takes 3 days to do, they the company would be happy to pay the equivalent of 4 days for previous cost of the 5 days output. Especially when it reduces the overhead of carrying the employee. On average an employee costs twice their salary to carry. In a connected world roles for employees will fragment into pieces and projects purely because the balance sheet will demand it. When this does happen will happen and we will enter the age of the projecteer. And I truly believe this will be better for everyone. Projecteers we gain a greater revenue clip for their time given, and companies will save on cost for activities done. In addition to this, neither party will be chained to each other mentally providing a more creative work life ecosystem.

So the question for all of us are:

How are we building our personal brand?

What are we developing our pinch hitting expertise in?

How can we create more value by being cross fertilised, nimble value merchants?

And how can companies connect with us?

We all about to become entrepreneurs whether we like it or not, best we get ready now.

Innovation is an attitude

Posted on November 6, 2013 by Steve Sammartino

Last night we announced at Tomcar Australia that we’d be accepting bitcoin as a payment method when selling our vehicles. Not surprisingly we got a lot of coverage globally in news and technology circles.

The reason I came up with this idea was multi-layered. Firstly, as a new car startup (the first in over 30 years in Australia) our budgets are skinny and our brand awareness is low. It was a damn cheap way (a few dollars on coding in bitcoin payments to our e-commerce platform) to get many millions dollars worth of PR. But there is more to it than that. And this is the key reason:

Innovation is just not about what we make. It is an attitude.

At Tomcar Australia we are hell bent on disrupting the auto manufacturing industry because the model is broken and it needs fixing. It needs not only new cars better suited to their environments, but new go to market methodologies. While we know our cars are best in class, we want to be best in class in our approach to everything. To push the boundaries of commerce. Ideas and methods that seem flunky today, become the norm tomorrow. I’m old enough to remember when credit cards seemed like a crazy and risky way to take payment from customers. One of our favourite questions is this: What would the legacy auto industry never do? It’s very cool to be involved in an organisation that embraces and considers the possibilities of every suggestion, and finds a way to make it work.

A key question for start up entrepreneurs is this: where can we innovate outside of what we actually sell?

Knowing what to know

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Steve Sammartino

With so much information abundance, it takes a certain skill in knowing what to know. Many emerging trends and changes in our economy and social structures are vital points of knowledge. We need to know them intimately, know how to use the technology and have a detailed domain expertise or we’ll miss out in a business or social context. But many things, maybe even most things, knowing about them is enough. Simply knowing it exists, that people like and engage in it, and why they like and engage in it will get us through:

– Angry birds

– Candy Crush

– Snapchat

– Reality TV

– Most news

– Any ‘down time’ activity…

If we’re across the motivations, the technology and the sociology, then it’s highly likely we wont get caught short by not having a personal interaction with it. Unless of course, it is related to what we actually do for a living. This is the key point, knowing which domains are worth us investing our time in to understand.

In a world of infinite expansion and choice where we can’t try or participate in everything, knowing what to ignore is an art form. If it feels disposable, then it is probably not deserving of our bandwidth.

The Potential Employee Flip

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Steve Sammartino

I can remember a time when it really mattered that you stayed in the same industry. If you wanted a job in consumer goods marketing for example, it really mattered that you had experience in consumer goods marketing. If you wanted to transition industries it was an incremental process. You had to eek your way across to new ground. Small step by small step. They wouldn’t let you play in their playground unless you had played their before, or at least a very similar playground. Sadly, our first job often defined us for much of our career. An potential employee needed a logical straight lined career flow.

I’m glad to say those days are over.

That attitude was one of protection. It’s a guild ethic, where profits are a function of a knowable, existential system. One that must be protected at all costs. But when a system breaks down, the smart players look for a new set of functions. A new attitude and ideas from an unfamiliar realm. If you’re in the middle of career transition, or wanting to break into a self determined entrepreneurial realm then there has never been a better time in history to do it. It’s damn exciting.

The best CV, or should I say personal brand isn’t one with a consistent story line. No, today it needs to be a set of juxtaposed, unusual and significantly differentiated projects, industries and activities. One that shows experimentation and the ability to cope with non-linear complexity. Go ahead and get involved in some, we’re waiting for you.

Spears, Seeds & Spanners

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Steve Sammartino

Tomorrow I’m pumped to be doing a lightening talk at co-working in the lane way. Which is an uber terrific event being organised by the Hub Melbourne co-working space.

I couldn’t think of a better time to go on an anthropological journey through living and working spaces. The story is surprising and interesting. If you’re in Melbourne tomorrow come along and have a listen – I’ll be on at 12.30pm. No power point, no data, just idea exchange and human knowledge. This is the outline of my talk to whet your appetite:

– Spears

– Seeds

– Spanners

– Cars

– Cables

– Chips

– Challenge

I’m really excited about this one.

The Fish & Chip shop rules

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Steve Sammartino

There’s a lot of talk in Australia about what makes a good Fish & Chip shop. It just so happens I know the answer to this question, and based upon this tweet by Heath, it has become clear I must share my rules right here.

Fish & Chip Shop rules:

Cannot sell other food items which traditionally live outside of the Fish & Chip ecosystem. Namely pizza and kababs.
Cannot be attached to another retail outlet such as a Milk bar. Must operate single business operation.
Must have fish tiles on the wall.
Must have wall poster of local fish population.
Must wrap Fish & Chips in paper. Boxes are an unacceptable packaging material.
Must not provide tomato sauce. Only salt and vinegar. Tomato sauce you have at home or go without. It’s just the way it is.
Must sell pickled onions in a plastic tub on the counter, with the price written in a marker pen on the side.
Must have traditional retro cans of beverage for sale in the drinks fridge such as Creamy Soda and Passiona.
Drinks fridge must have a sign which says: “Please make selection before opening door”.
Must make hamburgers and include a hamburger with the lot which has the options of beetroot, egg and pineapple.
Hamburgers must be built on the grill while they cook by an expert burger cook.
Must be run by hard working immigrant Greek family – the inventors & stalwarts of the local Australian fish & chip shop tradition.
Must have home made chips from own potatoes. Frozen chips from bag are unacceptable.
Must make potato cakes in house and dip in batter, just prior to dropping in deep fryer.
Must provide both fired and steamed dim sims. These of course, must come from the frozen bag variety.
Pricing board must be above the cooking fryers with prices written in chalk to allow for inevitable price inflation.
Must have retro 1980’s arcade machine with a single game such as Galaga or Pacman.
Must claim to be ‘local fish supplier’ of some random restaurant or pub in the local area.
Must be located in working class area, preferably in the Western Suburbs.
Should not be in obvious seaside location and counter intuitively be far away from waterway or estuary.
Must be closed on Mondays.
Must only be staffed by family members.
Must have wide multi coloured plastic strip at door entry – to keep flies out.
Must have cabinet at the front of the store window to display the ‘fresh’ fish.
Must have semi inappropriate Chiko Roll poster on wall.
Must sell ‘apple turnover’ oily apple pie with thick pastry.
Must sell banana and pineapple fritters.
Must wrap non-fried items in separate paper.
Must use metallic industrial sized salt shaker to deeply cover chips in salt.
Insert your rule here….

So why am I telling you this here on Startup Blog? Because sometimes the real innovation is about having the presence of mind to maintain a tradition in the face of change. While fish & chips might not be a thing where you live, I’m sure there is some kind of equivalent food or retail outlet. When change is the order of the day we can become worth talking about when we don’t change, or even bring back things of value which got lost along the way.

Leadership ironically, is sometimes about being a stalwart of the past.

Start with fiction

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Steve Sammartino

While many startups are new versions of existing ideas, in our quieter moments all entrepreneurs would freely admit they wouldn’t mind changing the world. Me included.

If we want to do this, then one of the most important things we can do is ignore the facts.

Facts specialise in yesterday. They are by definition an historical account of what we understood or what happened. Even science continues to disprove previously held scientific facts – the most recent being the quantum revolution, which among other things has proven that atoms can be in more than one place at the same time.

In startups we should start with fiction. An imagined world of what we’d like to see or create. We need to remember that the concept of ‘what works’ is by definition really, only what has worked. That ‘the way it is’, can only actually be about the way it was. And ‘the way to do it’, is really just a way in which it has been done.

Our job as entrepreneurs is really about turning today’s fiction into tomorrows facts. While this doesn’t mean we should go live with the fairies, it does mean we should sometimes ignore the so called rational.