startups Archives - Page 44 of 117

Omnipresent deflation & the longer tail

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

I’m convinced that pretty much everything is getting cheaper as time progresses. Relative to incomes there are not many things I can think of that have increased in price over time (excluding property). I wrote about this in a recent business manifesto post:

Omnipresent Deflation – While tabloids decry the rising cost of living and most everything we purchase, the reality is the opposite of what is being reported. Energy, housing, technology, entertainment and even food are all getting cheaper in ‘real terms’. Rapid technological change, Moore’s law and developing nation labour forces will ensure this continues. It’s creating the great business revenue maintenance challenge as we quickly move the price of ‘free’.

This is good news for startups. The barriers to entry have been infinitely reduced to well, almost nothing. One such service that is so cheap it is ridiculous is fiverr.com While it may not represent a bastion of quality, there sure is a lot of interesting services one can get for $5. Some of which could form interesting fun stuff to pimp your new brand. Many of these services could never have been available at such low prices… while many would never exist at all without the craziness that goes with all things web. Here’s a few of my fav’s from Fiverr:

Another case of the tail getting longer and the impact of connected labour.

Just when it feels like it’s all been done, it seems that the next idea will just take that niche a little further, and they’ll be some people who demand it too.

Starting from

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

A regular marketing tool is to let potential customers know what the entry price point of a product or service is. I was driving into car park in the city when I was exposed to this method of marketing.

Park from $5

I was there for 3 hours and it cost me $38. Which is quite a distance from the initial promise. It turns out that pretty much every retail offer in market use the prices start from premise. Cars, insurance, concert tickets, airline flights, they all do it. And because they all do it, we all know we need to be suspicious that it does not represent the truth. In fact, we know it’s a bare bones offer, a best case scenario for pricing, in which the probability of that serving our needs is very low. In short it’s a trick to gain attention, it’s inauthentic and often misleading. But now that the trick has been used for such a long period of time, people with a level of intelligence simply ignore the message. We know better than to believe it, let alone act on it.

Every now and again we need to flip the way we go to market. Often because the people that came before us ruined it for everyone. Maybe it is time to flip the ‘starting from‘, to become ‘ending at‘?

What if we told consumers what the most expensive version of the product or service was, the one with all the bells and whistles? Yes, the thing we actually want. While this might sound crazy, it would have an important impact on the perceptions of what we are selling. The experience could only get better than the promise, not worse. And instead of generating negative word of mouth or brand associations, it would probably generate some positive ones. Not just from the authenticity and respect we are providing our customers, but also due to the positive sentiment that comes when we realize something is better value than we expected.

It comes down to a simple principal, do we want to create disappointment, or inspire unexpected delight?

20 things in 20 years

Posted on September 28, 2012July 9, 2020 by Steve Sammartino

Since I left school around 20 years ago and in that time I’ve learned some things, that might just be a short cut for you. I’m not going to explain them – just state them. This list is non exhaustive and here they are:

Taking longer to make decisions rarely improves the final result of said decision.
Large companies primarily make decisions to protect income, startup companies primarily make decisions to grow income.
Hard work from an average person invariably has better results than average work from a smart person.
We remember and revere experiences much more than we do things. We should know which one to accumulate.
People who have money problems while on low incomes have them on high incomes as well. It’s the habits that matter.
Spare time is a poor choice to allocate anything important to (read here family, exercise, reading).
Large companies most often reward people on cultural alignment more than actual results of tasks.
Passion projects often take a lifetime to bare fruit. The short term favours sacrifice of belief systems.
Great technocrats always get paid well. Great leaders always get paid more.
Being aligned to your partners values is more important than alignment of interests. True for business and love.
Financial independence is always a function of spending less than your income. Regardless of income size.
Technology is recalcitrant towards the status quo and history. It forges ahead regardless.
Informal and self education is of greater value than the formal version. It should also never end.
Over time, prices for most everything relative to income drop. The only exclusion I know of is land.
The most valuable things in life cannot be bought or sold, they must be earned. Respect, love, health.
Secrets kill the soul.
Ideas should be shared.
Generosity is rewarded in the long run but may be invisible.
We all have valuable skills, and these skills can leveraged in many ways once we stretch our imagination.
The people we spend our days with has a greater impact on happiness than the work we do.

What are some of the philosophical things you’ve learned?

Aziz Ansari – another digital direct disciple

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

After the blog post from yesterday I happened upon a Cool Hunting interview with young comedy powerhouse Aziz Ansari. His approach has also been one of going direct to fans and paying attention to the changes in the digital landscape. His interview below has some cool insights, and a few laughs to boot. Oh, by the way, the Youtube channel from Cool Hunting is worth following as well.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6pfOLLCUZc]

What other entrepreneurial examples of web first & direct are you guys seeing?

Jerry goes web first

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

Most Seinfeld fans are in raptures about the new series by Jerry Seinfeld – Comedians in cars getting coffee.

It’s so good on so many levels. But it’s not the just humour that is worth commenting on, it’s the way the series has been presented to the market place. It has been launched on it’s own website comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com and hosted by video sharing website Crackle.com (which is owned by Sony). It’s a classic example of the strength of personal branding (admittedly there is possibly non bigger than Jerry) and the hacker approach the web brings to those with a brand strong enough to self publish. Going direct to fans not only enables one maintain creative integrity and control, but invents all sorts of monetization possibilities.

At this stage I can’t see where the financial win is for Jerry or Crackle (Crackle is free with little evidence of advertising?), while the deal between the 2 parties is also unclear. One thing for sure, is that this model is one we are going to see far more often – big stars and micro entrepreneurs going direct to market – to create the art and projects they want to create. Another comedian who did a great job of this approach was Louis CK who also decided to sell tickets to his fans direct from his website. This all reminds me of one of the great visionary talks from Garry V who predicted this a few years ago.

Smart brands and people are now going straight the web. It’s not about asking how we can ‘also use the web’ but it is a simple web first or maybe even web only mentality. Controlling our own distribution channels matters more than ever. The fact is it works better for most people to do business directly and it allows fans and content creators (or sellers) to have the direct relationship they’ve always wanted.

Negotiation and motivation

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

I recently had to negotiate a resolution with my next door neighbour. We had a problem where their hot water service was broken and heavily leaking. While this wouldn’t usually be a neighbours problem, all of the excess water was leaking under my house and flooding the sub floor of my home as the street is on a slight angle. I was very motivated to get it fixed (his leaking hot water service) as it was potentially going to ruin my house. The difficult situation was that my neighbor for some strange reason was not so motivated. After pointing out the problem numerous times he failed to attend to it for many weeks. He even made a failed effort to create a channel to direct the water down a storm water drain, which is curious given the fact it would have been easier to fix the problem itself.

After many failed attempts to motivate my neighbour to ‘do the right thing’ and fix it, I went to the authorities. First I called the water authority who informed me that his water bill was in the thousands of dollars this quarter (much more than a new water service would cost) due to the amount he was using and wasting. They also said that this level of water usage had been going on for months. But they also said they could do nothing, unless it was their pipes that had failed. It was then that I found there was little I could do without legal action. So I started by informing him that I would start legal proceedings if he failed to taken action. Again, no action was taken. It was not until our plumber told us the stability of our house would be at risk unless it was fixed quickly. So I then took the altruistic route. I offered to fix it for him and pay for it myself, no strings attached. I just wanted it resolved. Miraculously, he fixed it the very next day without my help.

While I was happy the issues was resolved, I was curious about his seemingly inside out motivations. Yesterday I had a discussion with my neighbour on the opposite side, at which time we discussed the now famous water issue. I told her what had transpired. Her response taught me a little bit about understanding the true motivation of people. Here’s what she said:

“I’m not surprised, he’s not a very helping person. And he doesn’t like being told what to do and prefers to take the high status position in everything he does. See his giant lemon tree, he wont even let us take a single lemon or share them with anyone who lives in our street. In fact, he never picks the lemons himself, he just lets them fall to the ground. Apparently it is a sign of prosperity. He must want people to think he has lots of money or something.”

As soon as I mentioned paying for him, he fixed it. He was more motivated by our perception of his financial position than he was by helping others, doing the right thing, wasting water, having a decent relationship with his neighbours or saving money with excessive water bills.

It’s another great reminder that what motivates us, is rarely what motivates others, especially during a negotiation.

Ned Needs You

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

For those in our local startup community, you may have heard little about Tweaky.com It’s one of those ideas that just makes perfect sense in hindsight – or foresight for the founders at least.

Well, the good news is that Ned needs you (oh, and PJ) as his (their) founders apprentice. Which isn’t an intern kind of role, but one that will be a fast track into startup land with that rare thing called a salary. There’s no need for me to go into how bomb tweaky is – you can check that out for yourself. Instead I’m going to tell you that I’d work for Ned in a heart beat. He has taught me plenty in the few years I’ve known him. The fact that he wants Australia to get into the habit of investing back into the local community tells you a thing about his character too.

This post happens a day before the cut off date which is Septmber 5th – to test your bootstrapping skills in preparing to apply. (not really, but you already knew tha!t)