Your friends & family don’t care

Seriously, your friends and family don’t care about your startup. They don’t have to. Sure they might pretend to care, but mostly they’ll wish you luck and get on with their lives.

Of all of my family members, only one has ever listed an item for rent on my website rentoid.com At first this surprised me.  I thought that having a very broad target audience, they’d like it and get involved. They didn’t. So why we feel the need to seed our new startup with family and friends is beyond me. It’s really a waste of time. If they don’t like what we do, we’ll be offended. If they don’t buy what we sell, we’ll be offended. The feedback is less like to be honest than from a stranger. And most of all we are not going to get rich selling to our family and friends.

Startup blog advice is this: Go direct to your real market. Family and friends rarely, if ever, hold they key to startup success. So why delay the start of said success by launching to them?

The gamer changer

At first I thought rentoid.com was the game changing idea for me all I had to do was launch and wait for my multi-million sell out.

then I thought critical mass in listings would be the game changer…

so I did that…. but the game didn’t change dramatically

after that I thought the new home page would be the game changer….

so I did that…. but the game didn’t change dramatically

but I also needed some SEO that surely, would be the game changer….

so I did that…. but the game didn’t change dramatically

in addition some high profile blog coverage would be a game changer….

so I got that…. but the game didn’t change dramatically

so I then I thought mainstream media & TV would be the game changer….

so I got that…. but the game didn’t change dramatically

in concert with some improved usability I knew we were getting close to the elusive gamer changer…

so I did that…. but the game didn’t change dramatically

Turns out the transaction process is  too complex, so simplifying it will certainly be a game changer…. ?

I’m doing this…. but it wont change the game dramatically.

No single event will, other than picking the right lotto numbers. One thing is for sure…. the game has changed dramatically since the first idea, launch and subsequent iterations. Eventually the game will be won, but it’s rarely a single play which wins it. That said, I choose to believe the next one will be the winner, otherwise why get out of bed the next morning?

Startup blog says, keep playing.

Develop a manifesto

I developed a manifesto for what rentoid on the weekend which had a tremendous response. It wasn’t designed for anything but clarifying my business beliefs for rentoid. But it’s had over 300 views and 6 embeds in 2 days and turned out to be a pretty cool brand awareness vehicle. All it took was 10 minutes and an honest approach. It’s below.

If you can type, you can make movies

Yes, it’s true. I made this movie in 5 minutes with the help of Lukey Mac (rentoid regular). And all I did was type. It’s not going to get me an Oscar for best animation, but it’s very quick and a cool way to get a message out to your members, fans, family, anything really…

It’s a new website called www.xtranormal.com and I think it is amazing. There is really no limit to where this could go…. Home made full feature animated flicks? Possibly.

For startups it’s a great resource to communicate cheaply (Free) and easily. Build a series of episodes and in addition we can really translate our brand values and personality.

Startup Blog says xtranormal rocks!

Building a web community

I was asked during one of my live twitcam sessions the title of this blog entry, with the number 3 in front of it. What are 3 things needed to build a web community. This is the answer I came up with right on the spot.

1. Participate
2. Share
3. Keep costs low

Participate: Use the service, website and community you are building. Be an avid user and of it yourself, even though you own it or built it. I use rentoid more than anyone and love it. You are not part of a community if you are a spectator. You need to be involved in it. Listen, create, help, assist, but not rule over. It’s not a kingdom or a principality, it’s a community, which means that all participants are equal regardless of their status. It doesn’t matter, if you are the customer or the creator of the community, everyone matters. It should be evident in the organic dynamics that all of the community are valued. everyone has something to offer and add that we can all benefit from.

Share: Share not because you expect something back. Share because we are all humans, and this is how humans roll. We are great at being there for each other a providing support. Doing stuff for the benefit of others for reasons that go beyond the financial. it was once said that the perfect day is the day you help someone who will never have the chance to repay you.

Keep costs low: Not for any economic reason, other than building things of incredible value like communities take time. If you build an expensive infrastructure for your community there will be too much financial pressure on making it work quickly, and communities don’t work like that. They are organic and take time to find a balance and set of values and systems. If you have too much cost associated with what you are doing, your behaviour will become non-community like. It just wont work.

Startup Blog says, Start building.

Great learning environment

Our environment shapes our behavior. Inspiring places create inspirational events, and with that in mind I’ve booked an Incredible location for Startup School Melbourne. The uber groovy Lindrum Hotel. Where the coffee and ambiance are both inspirational. Click on the image to check out the photos I took while checking it out.

At the event we’ll have Barrista style coffee (Lattes, Cappucino, espresso) all day – none of this McDonalds style pot of black muck. As well as great food from the restaurant. Even I’m looking forward to it. It’s also a nice space for a drink after and maybe a game of billiards together.

Still a seat for you. Click here to book: http://www.startupschool.com.au/ and join us in the mass corporate cubicle exodus

Instructions included

I was working on doing some new instructions for rentoid.com – It’s in an area on the website where things a slightly confusing. Then I thought. Why am I doing this? Wouldn’t it be better to re-design the system so it just doesn’t need instructions at all. Like a chair. It doesn’t need instructions. We just know how to sit on it by looking at it. Next time you start investing time in defining how to do something for our audience think about this:

“If we need steps to explain how things work, the system is broken.”

By definition it’s overly complex because it requires instructions. Especially if our business is web based. It’s a more valuable investment in time to fix the system, thing or service, not educate people how to use it.

The most important startup

I am incredibly happy with the following things:

- My relationship with my family (immediate and wider family)

- The state of my health. I fit and well enough to enjoy, people life and exercise.

- Where I live. Yarraville, Melbourne, Australia. In fact so much so that I evangelize it.

- My house. A beautiful little renovated Edwardian, not big but it’s just right for me and my wife.

- The state of my country Australia. It allows us to practice any religion / or not and live a free life with opportunity.

- How I invest my spare time. I like surfing, gym and mountain bike riding.

- The fact that I am continuing a vocation of learning.  Both in life and academically in my areas of interest.

- The work I do. Running rentoid.com teaching at Melbourne University and writing this blog.

If any of these parts of your life aren’t right. If we are not quite happy with them, no less totally unhappy with them. Then this is the most important startup we can focus on. The start required to change it. Start today.

Production values matter

Sure we live in a mash up society. It’s acceptable to bootstrap. It’s OK to learn on the job in the digital arena. What’s not acceptable is to get worse. To not reach previously set quality benchmarks. In any business, no less your start up. All of the self made youtube stars invest time in the final production of their content. People expect a higher level of quality these days especially if we want to gather long term fans and loyal viewers. Production values matter. What was acceptable in 2004 in not acceptable in 2009.

The first thing you notice in the video output of these highly subscribed Youtubers is production quality: Hotforwords,  Community Channel, Kev Jumba, Happy Slip, Fred and others.

So when Miley Cyrus throws together a home made video of her leaving twitter seen below, we realize how much value her producers add to her usual output – seen underneath.

Home made Miley

Produced Miley

I myself, need to improve the videos I make for rentoid.com. So I’ve recently been investing a lot of time learning how to use iMovie editing software.

The lesson for startups is to invest in our digital output. A little more effort in production can be the difference between gathering customers and looking like an amateur.

Decision intertia

I was having an interesting discussion with a colleague Cris Pearson (founder of Skitch & Comic Life) about pricing models on the web – as soon I’ll be changing the rentoid model.

I asked his some advice and his response was so simple it is till ringing in my ears.He said;

The more choices you give consumers, the less likely they are to do any anything.

He then went on to say ‘choose a price’ not multiple options, to avoid decision inertia. The question for startups is – what complexity barriers have we created which stop our people from buying from us?