Big Companies, Big Lies

You need more industry experience

You need to have experience managing a team

It’s out of my control

We care, we’re listening

We have a sustainable perspective

Our interests are aligned

People are our most important asset

Open plan is for open communication

We have a long term strategy

We serve our shareholders first

We put our customers first

We put our employees first

We have a lot of first places… ?

We make stuff up so we can justify the money we extract from something we don’t own.

Make your startup the antithesis of this – mean what you say.

Tough Love

My problem is…. I’m a really nice guy. Really, I’m reasonably nice, just ask anyone who knows me….

Actually it’s more I’m not as smart as I’d like to think I am. You see, often I don’t do people any favours by trying at all costs to be, Mr Nice Guy. Even if it’s at the expense of helping them grow. The interesting thing is that I usually get what I give, and that is, people are generally very nice to me. Even if what I need on occassions, is some home truths to help me grow.

What I really need is tough love.

Turns out my team also need some tough love too.

Tough Love – Startup blog definition:

Having a team let each other know ‘in no uncertain terms’ when members are goofing off, at the expense of agreed upon and shared objectives.

It doesn’t mean we turn into nightmare colleagues or the boss we always hated.

It means that we have a culture where we don’t want to let each other down, but we pull each other up in tough times and provide mutual motivation. We give each other guidance when we need it.

Photo by Chuck Rogers

Words by Steve – rentoid.com

Best advice ‘ever’ for entrepreneurs

I often get asked the following question: “If you had to give one piece of advice for entrepreneurs what would it be?”

Here’s my answer:

Revenue must exceed expenditure.

The more it exceeds it by, the better.

I like doing cool stuff as much as the next guy, and no I wouldn’t sell tobacco to kids in Africa to make money. But it becomes really hard to do cool stuff if your business doesn’t survive.

How to get to Sydney?

Fly in airplane

Drive car

Ride bicycle

Swim

Walk

Run

Motorbike

Bus

(insert your choice here)

Which one is correct? Well, it depends on a lot of things, like speed, budget and even why you are going…. Are you walking to Sydney on fitness or political campaign?

It’s easy in to judge strategy from the sidelines, especially when we don’t understand the constraints or objectives.

In startup land our paths will differ. What matters is if we get to Sydney, and if we did it in the manner which suited us.

Steve – rentoid.com

2nd worst shop front of all time

I took this pic of this shop front / side in my local neighbourhood. It’s easy to see when you drive past.

Startup blog prize (free book) for anyone who can tell me what they do without calling the number (or knowing someone who works there / digging around).

I’m all for single minded simplicity, but if we are going to go to the effort to paint the brand and phone number, it’s also handy to have a tag line which tells people what we do.

Steve – rentoid.com

Cast the media net wide

When aiming to generate media coverage for our startup or business. We often get one thing wrong. The thing we get wrong is related to our training as marketers.

We are too targeted. We are too fussy on who’s right for our product.

Answer – the right media vehcile is the media vehicle who’ll ‘cover it’.

In fact we need to do the reverse and cast the net wide. In fact cast the media net as wide as possible. What needs to be targeted is ‘the message’. The message needs to be written for the forum. But, in truth most of us have way more messages in our business than we have bothered to think about, or even invent.

The message or pitch is all about them, their readers and their viewers. The bait has got to be right as well. So before you pitch – work out how many angles you’ve got and you’ll be surprised what you can dig up. Especially for startups – who can exchange at a minimum, a few learning’s from the battle field, some business insights.

Here’s my example of Media angles for rentoid.com

Altruistic – Helping people

Business methods

Making Money from idle assets

Saving money – rent instead of buying stuff

Web news – first of its’ type

Startup stories

Technology used

Ecologically sound (no we don’t mean carbon offset)

Green message

Making the web physical connect – going beyond virtual

Helping the financially challenged

Temporary needs

Temporary residents

Reduce storage requirements / household clutter

Virtual organisations / outsourcing

Vicarious living (renting things you can’t afford) ….

There’s more, but you’re bored already. I’m just showing what’s possible. And if you have your doubts check out the rentoid media page here, of which not a cent has been paid for.

How many ‘media angles’ does your startup have?

Steve – rentoid.com

Opportunities

It’s oft said that opportunities in business arrive once we start looking. And startup blog agrees. It’s not really about opportunity though, it’s more about perceptive sentience, general awareness, and curiosity.

Today in Melbourne some opportunists scored big time. The weather savvy surfers got to surf in Port Phillip Bay which is usually as flat as a mill pond. For today we had weather which was as stormy as it has been it in many years…. (like the current share market?)  Maybe, just maybe stormy enough for ridable surfing waves to form on the City doorstep.

Ok so it wasn’t classic surfing conditions but the waves where there (revenue ?) for those with the aforementioned qualities (perceptive sentience, general awareness, curiosity) to find.

Most surfers who live in Melbourne, which is a 75 minute drive from the closest surfing location, probably just rugged up with a hot cup of cocoa and forget about surfing in the terrible conditions (market downturn?). Well they missed out. While they didn’t seek opportunity others got a special treat and rode the fun, albeit bumpy waves.

Tomorrow, the waves will be gone.

The surfers out there today are like the kind of entrepreneurs I like to hang out with. People with a curiosity to investigate new situations. To imagine that the current conditions might present new and different opportunities. (They had to consider the wind, imagine the waves may be breaking, drive over and check it out) The type of people who have their resources (surfboard & wetsuit) on hand when chances pop up. People who don’t care that others may laugh at them surfing crappy waves in semi-polluted waters. The type of people who not only win, but have a ball doing it.

See more of these shots of the surfers here on my Twitpic page.

Steve – rentoid.com

Asset Diversification

We diversify our asset portfolios to reduce risk. To reduce the risk of a particular asset losing value, declining, getting stolen, lost, or broken. We store our assets in safes and banks and put locks on them. We even insure our assets.

If information is the new ‘asset’ – Why do we keep all our assets in only 1 or 2 devices? Just a laptop, a brain, maybe an iphone or external hard drive. Why don’t we diversify their location, or even afford them other types of protection?

Maybe they should be shared instead, and not hidden or locked up. Maybe the sharing of the asset will stimulate it’s growth. Maybe…. But there is little doubt they ought be protected.

image by Austin Kleon

words by Steve from rentoid.com

Choose thrive!

Dying	Thriving
Disposable	Permanent
Anonymous	Identified
Replace	Repair
Colleague	Friend
Volume	Value
Average	Atypical
Discounted	Premium
Ubiquitous	Scarce / secret
Processed	Organic
Spectate	Participate

As entrepreneurs we’re lucky to be living in a revolutionary period. A period where we can take the good from the Industrial Revolution (infrastructure & technology) and reject the bad stuff (directive attitudes & mass culture)

In relation to the lists above – startup blog strongly recommends your startup offer be placed in the right hand cloumn.

steve – rentoid.com

A short history of Youtube

This screen dump from a presentation on Youtube says a lot. It’s the content loaded up on youtube everyday…

And mainstream media said it would never work. You can click here to see the enitre presentation. A bit long at 55 minutes – worth watching.