Stripped back
If you live in a western urban environs you’ve seen lots of bicycles of the ilk displayed below:
The single speed, fixed gear, mono color racer with white wall tires. Very hip, very now. But why?
It’s classic one downsmanship. In a world where people strive to have more, where increasing wealth has given many of us everything, the trend of tomorrow is diametrically opposed. The more of tomorrow, isn’t stuff, or consumption, rather experience, artistry and simplicity – the luxury of a stripped back existence. We often see these trends early in what may be considered the trivial, like bicycles. The trend will run much deeper than this.
Leading edge urbanites riding such bicycles (they are too cool for me) are showing the world they are more, but publicly displaying they can live with less. It’s a classic display of confidence. By wanting less, they are showing the world that they are more. Conspicuous consumption has been a preferred method for people displaying self worth for most of the Post world war 2 era. But I really think that this is another example we’ve turned the corner.
The question for entrepreneurs is this: What category or business is waiting to be striped back by you?
life in boxes
Today I got thinking about how humans spend a great deal of their life in boxes.
We live in boxes (houses)
We sleep in box (bedroom)
We drive to work in a box (car)
We work in boxes (office)
We shop in big boxes (retailers)
It just seems like we live our life inside boxes. I wonder if it impacts our creativity?
Why scoreboards matter
Humans are compelled to count. We count everything. Days, weeks, months, years, birthdays, money in the bank, salary levels, years of experience. It’s part of the human condition, maybe it helped us evolve to a civilised existence .
As startup entrepreneurs we need to let our people count something. Whether it’s the savings they made or they friends they have, there needs to be a way for them to keep track. So our people know they have made progress. Commerce is an anthropological game of football. So we must keep score. But it must go beyond the corporate scoreboard of profit, share price, turnover, number of employees… it has to be an audience focused score. Like followers on twitter. It has to be about them, not us, it’s how humans roll.
Perishable goods & websites
Our websites are no different to perishable goods at a supermarket. It’s not surprising given how well trained we are to check everything is up to date. From milk to computer hardware we want the latest version available.
So when someone finds your website via Google and the last blog entry is from last year, or the Copyright legal date is 2008, it’s a bit like the milk which got lost at the back of the fridge. We won’t touch it, there’s no limit of options and it is safer to elsewhere.
The good news for web entrepreneurs is this: It’s easy to keep things current. A simple blog entry once a week. A twitter feed in your side bar. Anything which shows your people you’re still in the game. That you have a pulse.
New vs Familiar
You’re probably bored of your packaging, website, logo or product already. You’ve been designing it, working on it and looking at it for so long… it’s a natural reaction.
Problem is, your customers haven’t. They’re not bored. They’re probably still intrigued. Chances are, they’re not even familiar yet. They’ve only seen it a few times.
There’s a strong temptation to change because we’re too familiar. Which turns our to be a really bad reason to change stuff. In fact, it probably disenfranchises our people just when they are getting used to it.
What to change
It’s usually the tactics that are wrong, not the strategy.
With startups, we can’t know the truth about strategy, unless we’ve tried nearly all the possible tactics for it.
Web Success = Populate & Promote
I recently saw a job posted on a web developer recruiting website. It involved some people looking for coders to make a copy of my web business and livelihood www.rentoid.com. What was interesting was the lack decorum shown in the coder recruiting process where the person said – build me a replica of this website. Here’s a screen print of it below.
I was a bit annoyed at first. and sent out a tweet to assess the mood of my army of advisers on twitter. I tweeted the following:
Not sure what to think of this? http://bit.ly/cYR5FI A compliment or IP rip off with me and @rentoid as the victims? Help! Thoughts?
The responses were varied, but all were within the theme of this person clearly does not get what it takes. Here’s some verbatim of the tweet responses:
I pretty much knew this before I tweeted the issue, but it did force me to think about web marketing success, and the success of rentoid to date and I came to the following conclusion. It’s not about the tech. In fact, the tech is pretty low down on the list of things needed for any website to succeed. And if i had to give my nemesis some advice on how to succeed in copying me it would be to do these two things:
Populate and Promote.
This is what needs to be done with any classified style website to succeed, and it takes a lot of time and investment. Investment in financial and human capital. The problem with being 2nd, 3rd or later is that all the easy promotional opportunities like this are taken by the market innovator. And populating your website to make it meaningful takes a lot of boot leather, which is something many web entrepreneurs are afraid of.
The Thomas Edison Strategy
In business, demand is invariably more important than supply. If demand doesn’t exist, supply is irrelevant. If demand exists, supply will eventuate.
I happened upon a quote from one of the greatest inventors / entrepreneurs in history Thomas Edison. Despite the simplicity of the idea, it’s very profound.
“I find out what the world needs, and then I proceed to invent it.”
This is some pretty good advice for any entrepreneur. It’s better to make what you can sell, than try to sell what you can make.
When to quit
This is the fifth of my crowd sourced blog entry ideas as suggested by Cameron Reilly. Cam wanted to get my thoughts on the following: When to call it a day. When to close up shop.
This is one of the most difficult propositions as an entrepreneur – when to stick and when to quit? My view is a simple analogy. When the startup or business feels like a bad romantic relationship you’ve had. The type of relationship you knew you had to get out of, but couldn’t. The type of relationship you had an unhealthy addition to, or found it too hard to leave emotionally, or was scared of the financial losses and asset split associated with leaving it. When your business feels like that, it’s time to leave. If you view your business as a relationship you have with it, then it will become clear if it’s over. Because we all know that feeling. And we usually know the truth deep down in our hearts when things are just not right. When your startup feels like that, it’s time to shut up shop.
Here’s some simple sentences that may also help you know if it’s time to quit:
It’s time to quit when, you’ve lost interest in the project, and your only doing it for the money.
It’s time to quit when, you only keep going because of the time and money you’ve already invested.
It’s time to quit when, you can’t sustain yourself or family on the income it provides, or the little time it leaves.
it’s time to quit when, you’ve had enough and would have a less stressful life in a job.
It’s time to quit when, you’ve run out of money, time or desire.
It’s time to quit when, you know who can achieve more moving onto the next project.
It’s time to quit when, your not quitting because the newness has worn off, but the business is genuinely not working.
it’s time to quit when, you achieved multiple set milestones set and they still didn’t pay off financially.
it’s time to quit when you no longer believe in what your doing.
It’s time to stay the course when none of the above applies.
ABC 7.30 report – Virtual Offices
I was fortunate enough to feature in a story on the ABC 7.30 report this week. The topic was on virtual offices and digital offshoring. My business rentoid got a nice little plug which is a bonus on a non-commercial channel. The opportunity arose from this newspaper article I was in on the topic in the Sydney Morning Herald. Which goes to show media exposure also has a compounding effect for your startup as well.
Although the story and offshoring in general has it’s detractors (unions love the status quo, unless it involves profit increases they want a share in). I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve worked with talented people in developing markets.
- My team get paid more than they’d get locally.
- I’ve helped team members get more work, and mentored them in building their own businesses.
- I like investing in developing markets because improves living standards.
It’s our job as entrepreneurs to create positive situations with tech innovations, and there’s no doubt in my mind having an overseas team does this, while building a business with beneficiaries locally (employees, revenue, community) as well.
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