Start Up Blog

Here’s an excerpt from today’s business section of the Sunday Age. A respected Australian broadsheet newspaper.

Correction

“Oops. Last week the story headlined ‘No More Living on Borrowed Dreams’ said household credit card debt was $4 million. The correct figure is $41 billion. The mistake was made by the reporter (who also choked on his conflakes on Sunday morning).”

What I like about this paragraph is it’s real. It sounds like a person wrote it. Not a public affairs department. They admitted they made a silly error which in my view makes them more reputable and trustworthy. Rare in large media organizations.

Start up lesson: People trust people more than they trust corporations.

There are only two types of investment which can be made:

Investments in money

Investments in time

The good news is that if we haven’t any money we can always invest our time. We can read books, read blogs, go meet people, study, get a job doing commission only sales, make business plans, practice public speaking, exercise, walk, play sport, help others, pray… Anything which gives us more knowledge…. anything which gives us more health…. anything which adds value to us as people.

The more ‘time’ we invest, the more we become, the quicker the money will find us.

Not a new concept, but an inspire log is great tool entrepreneurs ought use.

Inspire Log

Definition: Little booklet, notepad, or document with pictures, words or quotes which help motivate us on a daily basis to stay the course.

It doesn’t have to be full of pictures of luxury homes or Ferrari’s. It’s whatever makes sense for you. Maybe it’s a picture of a clean environment, a cure for a disease, a vision of world peace, some words from your favourite leader. Anything!

Print it, but it in a folder or plastic pocket and look at it each morning and night.

Apparently it works.

Blog action day is cool. Here’s why:

It’s simple way to unlock the power of the blogosphere. It’s for a really good cause. One that people are happy to help, but often don’t know how. It’s a start up which is an event.

Here’s the idea:

From www.blogactionday.org

“On October 15, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind – the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic.”

They already have almost 6000 blogs committed to it. Including this one.

Simple idea, simple to do, big impact.

Let’s hope it spreads.

“As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it”

 Antoine de Saint-Expery (author of the “Little Prince”)

There’s no shortage of really crappy consumer promotions out there. I blogged recently about budget airline Jetstar’s poor attempt here.

Win a car. Win a holiday. Conditions apply. Buy 3 years worth of our product to enter… need I continue?

Here’s some tips on running an effective consumer promotion:

Make it simple to enter

Make it free to enter

Make it a race

Make the prize unique

Make the prize the ‘users’ choice

Make it benefit your brand & the entrants

Don’t ruin it with terms & conditions

And here’s an example of the above which we have done for rentoid.

Feel free to enter.

‘God gave rock n roll to you’, but the rock band Kiss gave us much more than rock n roll – they gave us ‘theatre at transaction.’

It was the theatre Kiss gave us which in real terms transformed them from a band to a brand.

Consider the following classic KISS trademarks:

The face make up

The Logo

The clothing & boots

The flying Vee guitars

Gene Simmons breathing fire

Gene Simmons tongue

Gene Simmons vomiting fake blood

The intrigue, the mystery, the disgust….

These resulted in all sorts of spin offs like the Kiss dolls, Kiss comic books Kiss Coke bottles, the Kiss symphony orchestra concerts and even the Kiss army.

The gimmicks didn’t get them there alone, they had some great music. But maybe it was the above factors of the Kiss music experience that kept the band, sorry, ‘brand’ alive for the past 34 years!

We’ve all read the stories about how great start ups and emergent brands got their mojo. In hindsight it always seems so strategic, symmetrical and single minded.

This issue is hindsight. It will be something single minded and symmetrical that works. The problem is this: If we’re single minded from the start, and we get it wrong where does that leave us?

An old Chinese fishing proverb applies here: Cast the net wide.

Try everything.

Try everything quickly.

Find something that works.

Then stick to it in a single minded fashion.

Contrary to most modern marketing and entrepreneurial theories, we need to ‘get single minded, not start single minded.’

We never read about the 100 things any hero brand tried and failed with, only the winning strategy. So it all seems so perfect and well thought out. The truth is, most of the strategic wisdom arrives in hindsight. The more things we try, that greater probability we have of stumbling upon the right strategy – the one that works. But we should never fall in love with the plan before we commence.

It will all seem very strategic, symmetrical and single minded in hindsight.

I recently spoke about newspapers being a good forum for simple permission marketing.

We’ve just done exactly this for our start up rentoid. We approached the local western district newspaper called “the Leader” and discussed the community and environmental benefits of the rentoid service.

It worked and the article can be seen here.

The other reasons we started with a small newspaper is it’s in line with our clustering strategy and it gives us experience before we approach larger circulation media.

Marketing expert Ben Rowe was ahead of his time on the Gillette Fusion launch, as can be seen here.

The jury’s in. For the first time in their illustrious history, Gillettes latest innovation hasn’t become their best seller. Gillette Fusion 5 blade razor launch has failed for two reasons. I speak with authority as a former employee at Gillette.  

Reason 1: We don’t have a shaving problem

Reason 2: Innovation and research are not consumer benefits

Reason 1 details:

The Gillette Mach 3 and its various spin offs have made shaving about as good as it can get given we are running a sharp blade across our faces. We no longer have a shaving problem. It’s smooth, safe and comfortable. They’re trying to fix something that doesn’t need fixed. In this situation very few people will trade up, before we even consider the price premium they’re asking.

Reason 2 details:

8 years of shaving innovation and research doesn’t translate into an actual consumer benefit. It’s a diary, not a benefit. They’ve even placed stickers on other Gillette shaving products trying to convince consumers to switch. We won’t.

In the early days the Gillette strategy of obseleting themselves was a good one, but no strategy works forever, and there is always a point of diminishing returns. Seems Gillette has reached theirs.

Start up lesson: If your innovation doesn’t solve a problem or significantly improve the consumer experience, you haven’t got one.