startups Archives - Page 62 of 117

New rules of media

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

The new rules of media are pretty simple. The only type of messages pretty much anyone is interested in these days are:

Anticipated, personal and relevant messages.

Anything else is just noise, or maybe even SPAM. It’s also easy to conclude that this is only relevant in new media. Not true. These changes in the landscape have modified our worldview to the point that all media must now abide by the rules in bold above.

So next time we talk to our audience, we should ask ourselves if we abiding by the rules of the new world, or damaging our brand by living in the past.

The first 10

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

When we build our next project we should only worry about the first 10.

The first 10 people we tell.

These first 10 people are people that we know, people that like us, trust us and value our opinion. If they don’t tell anyone, we need to start again. Re-build our project, or find another one. But if they tell another 5. And then that 5 tell another 3. Then we can be pretty sure that it is start start of work that matters. Work that people need.

At the start of our next launch we should really think hard about these three words: the first 10.

Open pay display

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

I think companies should have everyone’s pay on display. A publicly available intranet site in alphabetical order with every employees name, salary and benefits next to it. Ok, so this is a bit of a shift from the secret salary world we currently live in. It might even cause a little bit of a distraction in the short term. But one thing is for sure, it will move our society to a far more accountable culture than we currently have.

Let’s consider for a moment the type of behaviour this is likely stimulate:

“I work harder than Joey, and he earns $20,000 more!”
“I want a pay rise”
“Holy shit, I better start working harder, I’ve been found out.”
“I wont get a pay rise in years”
“She doesn’t deserve that”
“Why do sales people earn so much?”
“Our company is a rip off, they don’t pay well”
“I can’t believe how little Mary earns, she’s a gun”
“I’m gonna work my ass off to get that job – I never knew I could earn that much!”

I really believe the initial chaos would lead to a better and more transparent workplace. One where everyone understands their role, impact and the investment the company makes in its people.

In my next startup, this will be policy number one. Total transparency in all financial documents, including salaries.

The last industrial relic

Posted on July 31, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

You probably don’t know this but the office is a weird thing that only turned up when factories did. Sure Lawyers and accountants had them, but not in the corporate form they exist in today. The office was an addendum to where stuff got built. It was there by accident, it was there because the tools of the trade (office machinery) had not been democratized to the point where we could own and have them in our home. The strange thing is that, now we can work from home, the large majority of us still don’t. Not because we don’t want to, but mainly because large corporations lack trust.

Many of us would save time and money if they did not exist (both people & corporations)

I think it’s the last industrial relic. It needs to be radically changed, even the name office is wrong. It sounds ‘official’ and full of rules. Sure we do need to work together sometimes – but personally I’d rather do that in some kind of creative collaboration space.

If offices really add that much value, then why do startups never have them? It’s because entrepreneurs know they are expensive to run, out dated and redundant.

Jason Fried gives us his synopsis on this topic at a recent TED talk. Which I love – it’s 20 minutes worth investing:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XD2kNopsUs]

4 reasons they will buy your startup

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

As far as I can tell their are 4 main reasons that a company will buy your startup. Particular in the web / tech fields:

Talent buy out
Technology buy out
User buy out
Revenue buy out

What’s interesting is that these buyouts happen in that order as well.

The reality is that it’s rare to be the focus of a talent buyout unless you and your team have an incredibly unique set of skills. The tech buy is less difficult and is the savior of many tech startups who have cool stuff with no revenue or customers. In fact, it’s rare enough that we should ignore it as a possibility.

The reality for you and me is that buy out 3 and 4 is where we are likely end up. So the question we must ask ourselves are these:

* If we are aiming for a user buyout, how long can we survive without revenue?

* If we are aiming for a revenue buyout, why don’t we just keep what we’ve built?