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You ain't got time to bleed

Today was an exercise in branding with acompany I am helping right now.

I went into town with the head of marketing and explored how their current brand is being portrayed along side the competition. We also toured retail shops both related and not to see how other brands carry their messages throughout the shopping experience.

It's always good to pound the pavement and explore new areas. You'll find both inspiration and honesty on the street.

Take pictures, notes and be brave enough to ask locals if they've heard of your brand or know where your store is.

Hiding under the covers never got rid of monsters when you were young. Luckily there weren't any but you can't say the same about your business.

Ignorance isn't bliss when making decisions related to your brand. You need to understand your customer behavior, collect website data and know your environment.

Watch Predator and learn.

#branding #startups #marketing

Full of hustle, Los Angeles tech takes on Silicon Valley

“Los Angeles is a town that spins a million stories every day,” says local technophile Sean Percival. “It’s the perfect backdrop for a techie looking to tell his or her own story.”

Read more here

#database #index #tree #data

$1,000 or 1,000 Words?

What do you think is worth more?

Try not to think of investors as wallets. They are often seasoned entrepreneurs who can provide insight, connections and brutally blunt feedback that will save you lots of time and money.

Recently I met with an investor friend for drinks to show him something I have been working on. While he agreed that the technology was "very cool" he wasn't convinced that the model I had planned to move forward with was best.

I walked away from that bar with a lot to think about and I spent about a week going over alternative models and found that he was right. He didn't give me the answer but he gave me enough honest feedback to make an impact on how I was approaching the solution.

You can ask for feedback or money that will be spent educating yourself on what NOT to do.

marksbirch

endlesshustle-blog

marksbirch:

I have spoken on a few occasions about this topic, but I wanted to let folks know of a great event tonight at General Assembly hosted by Kelley Boyd called “A Guide to Hiring a Salesperson”. There is rarely a topic that I discuss more often other than fund raising with startup...

What's your favorite method for capturing your ideas?

I Don't Ride Elevators But I Do Read Comics

What's your pitch?

Your pitch should be more like a comic strip than comic book.

I often get asked if I want to see what people are working on and then sit through a 10 minute short narrative.

I prefer the story of a start up to be short and to feel excited even if I don't quite get the technology behind it, yet.

#startup #pitch #comics #vc #b #Business

You just had an idea? So what!

So did 10 other capable people.

What are you going to do about it?

Where do you start?

Think big and start small and "Get to the chopper!"

"Get to the chopper" is a trivia worthy line said by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie "Predator".

Arnold's character was trying to get his team out of a bad situation and his goal was clear. He had a plan and executed. "Get to the chopper" is easy to say and a good idea when being hunted by a killer alien but there are things that need to happen in order to make that a reality.

Where will the chopper be, when and for how long? How do we get there? Do we need supplies? Do you have time to bleed?

Before you rush out looking for cool domain names, begin designing that fancy "Won't it look cool" logo ask yourself if it's a business or not.

What inspired the idea? Who would buy the product? Is there a market for it?

If you think you have something then come up with a plan to get to the chopper.

#arnold schwarzenegger #predator #startups #business plan

Stick and Move: One without the other is a bad combination.

Whether it be in gaming, your career, an idea or life in general standing still can be detrimental to your overall well being. On the flip side so can moving without standing still long enough.

I have been guilty of this and so I speak from experience. I have stuck around too long at jobs that weren't great for my sanity. I see people in relationships that should've ended long ago. And I see startups and even established companies (some former employers) that are afraid to move and even afraid to stick.

Often the founders of a startup are head over heals in love with their idea. So much so that like a proud parent they refuse to believe that their child could ever be flawed. Often feedback falls on deaf ears and praise is all they seek. Founders of a young company need to find that balance between sticking to their gut and considering advice and feedback from outsiders.

Startups shouldn't change their roadmap based on every bit of feedback but evolving into a successful company comes from evolution over time. Refusing to change can be just as damaging as changing too often.

A great example of to much stick is Blockbuster Video. This company went from juggernaught to not seemingly overnight because they stuck too long to their original brick and mortar model.

Netflix thought that leveraging the postal service and maintaining less brick and mortar was a better model and hit 1 billion DVD's shipped by 2007, just 10 years after it was founded.

An example of "move" is that with the advent of high-speed Internet and faster processors more and more people began streaming movies. So as not to fall into the same trap as Blockbuster did, Netflix added streaming to their already successful model which has been a great move on their part.

Redbox is another movie rental giant that was founded in 2004 and in 2007 passed Blockbuster in number of locations and had reached 100 million rentals by 2008!

Now all Blockbuster can do is play catch-up. Blockbuster isn't dead but the model they are known for is all but flatlined. Blockbuster tried to deliver via mail but that didn't go so well and they are making moves to stream and now has kiosk locations.

Blockbuster had too much "stick" and went from being the king to being the copy cat. Netflix has demonstrated how to stick and move by sticking to DVD delivery and moving to streaming along with changes in their customer needs and wants.

Redbox is an example of what happens if you potentially ignore a move. Netflix or Blockbuster could've moved into the kiosk game but didn't and now they both have competition there.

#startup #business #netflix #blockbuster #redbox #mike tyson

The Person Who Doesn't Make Mistakes Is Unlikely To Make Anything

Benjamin Franklin said "I haven't failed, I've had 10,000 ideas that didn't work."

Thomas Edison said 'Of the 200 light bulbs that din't work, every failure told me something that I was able to incorporate into the next attempt.'

Theatre director Joan Littlewood said 'If we don't get lost, we'll never find a new route.'

All of them understood that failures and false starts are preconditions to success.

This is an excerpt from an inspirational book by Paul Arden "It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be."

Don't Just Work...Rework.

...try to make your meeting a productive one by sticking to these simple rules:

• Set a timer. When it rings, meeting’s over. Period.

• Invite as few people as possible.

• Always have a clear agenda.

• Begin with a specific problem.

Meet at the site of the problem instead of a conference room. Point to real things and suggest

real changes.

• End with a solution and make someone respons -

ible for implementing it.

I love this book...here's a sample.

Ramen recipes, good for small budgets and large appetites.

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