Simple & memorable

When I first met Sean Callanan for SportsGeekHQ he gave me a business card which I thought was pretty cool. An old footy trading card – with a player from my favourite team. As below:

What I love is how he did it. It’s a simple mashup. No printing costs – just a card with a sticker of his details on it. He carries with him a card from each team and during the conversation (without me realising) he asks which team I follow. When we said farewell he gave me the card – which I clearly took notice of. Not only was the player from my team, he was even from an old era – my one!

How to invest $1500

Invest it in yourself. Go to local Melbourne (Y Combinator) Statup site Adiso.com and book a flight to San Francisco.

Spend the next month working on your best idea startup idea.

Get a working prototype, or do those updates you’ve been talking about for the last 6 months on your current startup. Get it in shape.

Book meetings with VC’s, write up a schedule of where all the events are, startups weekends are and build a calendar of people to meet, things to do and actions to take while in Silicon Valley. Ask some locals who’ve been there and done it.

Get your spiel tight. Know how to pitch in 1 minute. With no slides, just your voice box.

Make sure your spiel covers what it is, who it’s for, what it disrupts, and the final revenue model. 

Go there, pitch and win (or lose). But you’ll win regardless. You’ll win with knowledge gains and contacts made. Get excited, have a story to tell, get 2012 off to a fast start.

Didn’t you know it’s an Aussie gold rush over there?

Non Products

Today I noticed an outdoor advertisement for the local lotto here in Australia.

Their New Years Eve lotto draw: 31 Million Megadraw. Cleverly placed on the 31st of December.

It got me thinking about what people are really buying. I don’t think it is the chance to win. I don’t even think people are buying into hope. I think people are outsourcing their worries – they are buying the right to imagine what it could be like.

There are a lot of what I call non-products that people buy. Products and services which have no ‘real utility’. In this instance, lotto, they have bought some time to imagine the possibilities. But in some ways we could do this without the ticket… because the reality is we are not going to win.

I wonder what other Non Products fit into this category?

The future is less

You’ve heard this:

If all you ever do, is all you’ve every done. Then you can only expect all you’ve ever got.

It’s changed slightly, actually it has changed radically:

If all you ever do, is all you’ve ever done. Then you can expect much much less than you used to get.

This is because there are a nearly 2 billion people in the BRIC nations who are prepared to do what you do for around 10% of your price. And in a ‘web everywhere’ world people can find them. Yes this includes nearly all of us – Architects, Engineers, Accountants, Lawyers, Graphic Designers, Coders, Developers, Journalists  – every single task that can be done remotely, and even some that can’t be.

For them 10% of your pay is a 50% pay rise. A pretty good deal from where they sit.

What to do – do more with the stuff that lives around the edges. Make meaning from the seemingly disparate. Add a creative edge by mashing things up in a new and interesting way.  And demand the people near you take notice of your ideas. If they don’t, then find a better place to share your creativity.

The trick to the future is to organise the factors of production, not be them.

Another brand having fun – Pringle

The thing I really dig is brands that are honest. No point being uptight. Pringle Scotland does a good job of this. Hat tip to Big Red of Haul.

You meet the most interesting people on line

This story is kind of weird and long. It’s about a person I meet on the internet who lives in Romania.

Counter to what most people normal people would do I decided to ‘gift’, sorry invest, a significant amount of money in this person to embark upon a project. I have never met him. I did limited checks on him to testify that his words were true. I have already given him the money. Below is the story – so far.

I was on-line late one evening when a request came through from a stranger to connect on skype. It didn’t look like spam or some girl promising lewd conduct. So I accepted the request to connect from Raul Oaida. The discussion then started with him hoping that I could connect him with one someone I was linked to on LinkedIn. The person in question was Esther Dyson. Esther is a renowned Venture Capitalist, Entrepreneur and innovationist in many fields. Quite the tech celebrity. I informed Raul that my link to her was limited and tenuous. That I only have only met her twice at Stream Conferences as she is a board member of WPP. Sure I know her and have had a conversation or two, but I couldn’t introduce someone to her, let alone someone I only met on the internet. I challenged him to contact her directly, but certainly not to mention me. Next, I bid him an on-line farewell and wish him luck.

Fast forward 1 week. Raul contacts me again via skype. This time he doesn’t ask permission. He is already connected to me on-line. He tells me that Esther has responded to his query, but is unable to assist at this time. So I engage a little futher, assuming his interest lies within the startup arena. It does – kind of. He tells me that he is a rocket scientist looking for funding on his latest rocketeering project ‘October Sky’. The honest truth is that this piques my interest. It is not everyday that a startup entrepreneur is interested in sending rockets into space. It is certainly more interesting than someone the next guy pitching a mobile app or CMS idea.

I tell him he doesn’t need Esther, or anyone in particular. What he needs is a little more imagination, and a bootstrapping startup ethic to make the thing happen. I go on to recommend a few books, reading material and other ways people have got their startup into action any cash of their own or direct funding funding. In the interim, he disagrees telling me this is impossible.

From the actual Skype chat:

Steve Sammartino:  My advice is don’t wait for permission. Just start.

Raul Oaida: I have no funding, that is the problem. I am an 18 year old from east europe

Steve Sammartino: You don’t need funding – you need imaginiation
Get a book on how to start your project without money.
A good one is ‘The art of the start’ by Guy Kawasaki. read this book. it will help

Raul Oaida: It is impossible, cannot make anything without money and I’m not out for profit, if you remember one of the 3 main goals is to found a non-profit.
For me I belive a better book is Rocket Propulsion Elements by Sutton
Do you have any contacts from the aerospace field?

Steve Sammartino: No sorry. If you want to get your project going you will learn how to self fund… it is possible. Feel free to ping me later.

Raul Oaida: It is impossible to make a rocket without money

Steve Sammartino: I will try and help you in more detail on how to get your projecty going without money….
 there are ways of doing this…. it is a skill in itself – like rocketeering is I will prove it to you….

——–

You get the picture, nothing like teaching someone the art of bootstrapping, on what is fundamentally a cool project.

So after a few more skype chats, I teach him that a smaller project is needed. A proof of concept, or in this case, an example the skills he has in this area. So We developed a smaller version of the October Sky project which will get our ‘Propulsion Device’ into the near space field – that is an altitude above 100,000 feet. This project was only 10% of the estimated cost of the larger rocket project October Sky.

We also decided that we should make a mini documentary of it to show case the planning, the process, the visuals and the event. I agreed to fund it, if I could choose the payload and have the rights to the visual footage for my ‘own purposes’. From this we will create some very interesting film for viewing on the web. And in doing so Raul, will start to become known as a Rocketeer – taking him closer to the bigger projects.

Already he is learning the art of inspiring and collaborating with others to make a project happen.

I’ll keep you posted as the project details arrive – including what we are sending into space.

The new usability experts

Are not who we expect them to be. It’s not Jakob Nielsen or even Steve Krug. In fact it is Joe Citizen.

Without even realising it, the average web surfer or smart phone addict has become an expert in usability. This doesn’t mean we could ask them what a sight should look like, how it should work or to advice us of any design imperatives. it’s a little different than that. But have no doubt, they are the experts. And their expertise is different. it is more like this – they know what sucks. They will not tolerate a site that sucks for more than a few seconds.

We have entered an age of mass usability expertise – and this has been driven by social media. As entrepreneurs and aspiring startup geeks we have to remember the training our users are getting. They are being trained on what is ‘best practice’ by the worlds best – brands like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Google, Foursquare. Brands with the greatest UI’s ever seen are training the everyday person on what good looks like. Even if it is occurring at a subconscious level. It is happening.

The impact of this is significant. For me it puts flow first, and features second. The flow of the site and intuitive nature must be put above all other technology and feature desires we have. If we fail with our usability, there wont be a second chance to win back the experts who’ve already decided we don’t cut it.

Nixon – update

I got an updated response from Nixon this morning, which essentially didn’t let me give them my money. It just was an explanation of their position.

——————–

Hi Steve,

Our website is just a way to get our most popular items (watches/audio) directly to our customers. We will expand the online range later on, but for now this is all we have.

If you would like to track down a wallet you can call our head office on 07 5589 9949 and they should be able to advise a local stockist.

This email is specifically for customers who have ordered from our online store.

Kind regards,

——————–

I would have thought an on-line store is to sell the products you have – full stop. In any startup or established business, our job isn’t to justify infrastructure, but to make revenue happen.

Living in the past – Nixon

To: orders@nixonnow.com.au
Subject: Order on line

I am trying to buy a wallet on line – but there is no way to add item to shopping basket.

Please help/

Steve.

——————–

To: “Sammartino, Steve”
Subject: RE: Order on line

Hi Steve,

Our online store currently offers watches and audio product only. For a larger range of our clothing and accessories please visit our preferred online retailer here:

www.surfstitch.com/brand/nixon

Kind regards,

——————–

To: orders@nixonnow.com.au
Subject: Re: re: Order on line

Hmm – that’s pretty 1996 don’t you think?

Surfstitch.com.au don’t have the item I want… ?????

Can I order over the phone and pay via credit card and get sent to me that way?

Let me know,
Steve.

——————–

I’m yet to hear back from these guys yet. Although they did give their initial response within 30 minutes. I’m still waiting for the second response. A person with credit card in hand, ready to buy.

Ignoring the fact that it is totally ridiculous to sell some things on line and not others, it is more ridiculous to not call me back (they have my number), take my order, take my money, go down to the warehouse and grab the item and put it in an express post or fed ex bag.

When it comes to selling on-line, being half committed is often worse than not being involved at all.

Instagram is my new twitter

Lately I’ve found myself checking my instagram feed more often than my twitter feed. I didn’t realise it at first. But I noticed it only when a few of my twitter friends commented on my lack of tweeting. Clearly I’m still using both, but increasingly instagram is what I give my small doses of available attention to. I remember the time when this happened to facebook, the time when I slowly started coming back to facebook less often, and starting giving my attention to twitter. And it is happening all over again for me.

It really does feel like there are only a few channels I can invest in at one time. Maybe it is Dunbar’s number is at work again?

If I had to understand why this is happening I’d just put it down to noise. When there are a lot of voices shouting at once, it is very difficult to hear what anyone is saying – the conversation is replaced with a hum of city noise, interspersed with the occasional siren or loud car horn. Instagram feels more intimate at the moment. It feels like twitter did when I first got there. I have so few people in my feed I can see everything. A few crew who have organically organised themselves to share some of their life. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything, and it feels like I have a greater sense of control that my other feeds. Sure, I have to take a photo of all my thoughts – but most thoughts we have can be augmented with a pic quite easily. In addition, this need for a picture reduces the amount of banal posts I see in my feed.

Increasingly I am convinced of one thing – as soon as ‘everyone’ arrives at a party, it’s time to find somewhere more interesting. And what this means for entrepreneurs, is that if your party is cool enough, people will eventually seek you out.