Global Startup Sessions

Live Abroad. Travel the World. Build a Startup.

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Startup Tools

Being an entrepreneur often means being a jack of all trades, someone who wears many hats (maybe even too many at times - not always the best look), but that doesn’t mean you always have every skill readily available, or maybe your skills aren’t all quite where you want them to be do produce the level of professional work you want.  Here are a few of our favorite tools for when you’re just starting out... Website: Wix.com Email Marketing: MailChimp  CRM Platform: Base  Social Media Planning: PostVu (app) Site Data & Analytics: Google Analytics (free version)  Tracking Document & Page Views: Attach.io 

Wireframe & Mockup: UXPin Graphics: Creative Market  Graphic Design W/O Programs: Canva 

Odd Jobs: Fiverr  Looking for something we didn’t mention? Startup Stash is a great site filled with all different types of startup tools in a plethora of categories from idea generation to Product demo and everything in-between. 

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Startup Story: Keep Going

A short and interesting startup story from ecommerce entrepreneur Melanie Duncan on starting an online-based retail startup. 

Regardless of which industry you’re in, the main takeaway here is to persevere. As Melanie says, you never know when you’re one idea away from making it and we couldn’t agree more. One of the biggest reasons for failure is quitting too soon (or should we say quitting in general). We go into businesses believing that if we can start them overnight, that they should have success overnight too and it rarely actually works out that way. So, after some time and loads of effort we don’t see the results we were hoping for we lose faith and quit, but you just never know how close to making it you are. 

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When you have a great idea, but lack vision during the execution...

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Franco Manca ...Meeting their Co-founder and Why we Love London

We’re always touting how London is an amazing city to be if you’re a startup and here’s just one of thousands examples of why...

Last fall we were in London and had the opportunity to meet many Founders, CEOs, world-renown advertising executives, angel investors, venture capitalists and everyone in-between. One of the Founders who we were lucky enough to meet was the Co-founder of Franco Manca, a highly successful pizza restaurant turned franchise that is London’s best pizza (we’re not making that up - check them out on Yelp). 

Co-founder (and Founder of Bread Bread), Bridget Hugo, shared her startup story -- and we love a good startup story. To carry on the topic of our last post on Facebook and pursuing startup ideas that aren’t exactly revolutionary or are part of an already saturated market, Bridget did just this and wasn’t afraid of competition (or at least not to the point of avoiding this business idea). In short, Bridget and her partner spent holidays in a small village in Italy where they loved a local pizza joint. When they would return to life back in London one of the things they missed most was that very pizza - a very simple, but perfect Italian pizza. 

Despite that London is riddled with pizza options, she and her partner decided that London could use yet another pizza and soon created Franco Manca. They started lean by selling in a local food market. Not to say they didn’t face some ups and downs (as all startups do), they soon found out that they were right in thinking that London could do well with their pizza as it became quite loved and they opened new locations. Now they are a top pizza restaurant and their franchise can be found throughout London. 

Another great example of entrepreneurship: recognizing an opportunity/gap in what appears to be a very tight market. Also, just another example of why London is an amazing place to be when you’re a startup (and thus why we begin our UK & European sessions in London). 

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Competition ...so what?

One of the most common reasons why entrepreneurs don’t pursue an idea is because of competition. Maybe there’s already another company in business too similar, maybe even the same as your concept. So what do most people do? They drop the idea under the assumption that there is no more room for another business - but this assumption is often oh so wrong. 

Consider Facebook for a moment. A company that is now valued at over $300 billion (ah hem - thats BILLION!), but it is also a company that was not the first of its kind to enter the marketplace. We’ve so easily forgotten about Myspace, but they were indeed the original social networking platform until Facebook arrived out of nowhere and left Myspace in the dust (or more of less in the grave). Facebook is just one of the thousands of examples of enormous success found without being the “first to market”.  A thriving economy demands competition. The United States is a culture built off the freedom of choice -- and one that also finds much a level of power when given choice (granted, this isn’t true of all cultures). Most of us would agree that maybe we don’t need 30 different options of crackers or 20 styles of sport socks to choose form, but we would probably agree that it would be a bit disappointing if we had only one or two options of socks to choose from and just one company offering some web-based tool we want to use. Even if we love the one option we have, we tend to want to know that we choose it and thus, we are using it because it was the best option and not because it was our only option.  Moral of the story: don’t let competition in the market stop you from pursuing your idea. Competition is good. It provides you with solid evidence that there is a market for what you’re offering. The “first mover” has essentially done a great deal of marketing for you, as they helped to create a product/service awareness and built a demand. Lastly, statistically the second mover advantage can be huge - resulting in often more success than the first mover and remember that you came up with this idea for some reason (probably because you found a way to do the same thing in a better way). 

Be like Facebook and don’t be shy because you’re not the first, learn from their strengths and weaknesses and do it better than your competition. 

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Storytime: Startups Abroad

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Wagamama’s Bicycle Advertising: Where they went wrong when they could have gone right

Earlier this summer, Wagamama got creative with a cheap advertising stunt, putting their bright green Wagamama bicycle locked at a nearby bike rack. They didn’t expect to find an immediate outburst of angry Londoners though, who claimed that they were taking up precious rack space and smothering the public with another ad.  It’s not uncommon to see bicycles propped up at a busy street corner in major cities around the world sporting a local business’s name or logo and yet why all the uproar when Wagamama does it? Well, there are a few issues with the way Wagamama executed it... First, bicycles with adverts are typically found tied to street lamps and other random locations that aren’t necessarily used for personal bike storage. Not only was it obtrusive, but i was unattractive. Most of the bikes you see with advertisements on them are actually quite cute (picture a beach cruiser bike with a wicker basket full of flowers and a hand painted logo for a local artisan coffee shop). Lastly, since it wasn’t at least visually appealing, it should have had something else to offer. For an advertisement to be effective, it needs to provide the audience with some sort of value, whether that be via the aesthetics, learning something new (ie people who use dating apps go on double the dates of those who don’t... then shows a dating app company), perhaps a discount, etc...  So, how could they have used the same advertising tactic and gotten better results? There are a number of things Wagamama could have done for a more effective ad. Here are a few ideas...  1. If the bike is going to be taking up space at a busy, public bike rack, then it should have actually been ridden by someone. The most obvious would be one of Wagamama’s employees. Then, the bike could have had a more relevant message, maybe something along the lines of: ‘powered [and/or fueled] by Wagamama’ or ‘a better commute because of Wagamama’. It could be loads of things, but you get the gist. 

2. If the bike was not going to actually be used by someone and was going to be locked at a public rack, then it should be useful to those fellow bikers by offering additional bike parking. They could do this by saying something like ‘looking for somewhere to lock your bike? Use Wagamama’s rack across the street’ 

3. Another alternative to the above, would be to say on the bike somewhere obvious that ‘feel free to block us in, we’ve been around for XX years so clearly we’re not going anywhere’-type of message. This would at least allow someone to leave their bike beside the Wagamama bike and thus not have the Wagamama bike taking up additional precious space. 

4. It should have at least been attractive. They could have made it cute or funny to look at. It could have had a silly paint job of a bunch of noodles or maybe soy sauce (or whatever condiment they use most) with a message along the lines of: legs feel like noodles after your ride? We’ve got the sauce to make it better’ ...well, that may not be our finest, but again, you get what we’re saying. 

5. Offer a benefit to visiting Wagamama. Ultimately, the advert was used to try to attract visitors to their restaurant and yet they didn’t give people any reason why they would. Now, we’re not touting a discount strategy (because they’re usually not the best method to gain customers), but they could be used to at least draw people in. Maybe something like: have a  free pint on us if there are no spaces left on this rack. Then people would welcome the idea of not being able to get a spot. 

Anyways, thats our two cents on the matter. Like everything, its easier in hindsight and this is simply our perspective with limited knowledge of what Wagamama’s goals actually were. For all we know, maybe they were very strategic and wanted the outcry to get the publicity. Negative publicity isn’t usually the goal, but hey, as they say - any publicity is good publicity. We wouldn’t be talking about them now if they hadn’t done this - so thanks Wagamama for the material (we really do love some Wagamama - it’s our go-to spot while in London Heathrow and if you’re ever there at breakfast get the coconut porridge!).  Thanks for reading and happy advertising! 

Cheers,

Kelly M.

Founder, GSS 90

www.gss90.com  

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How startup communities accelerate growth.

It used to be that startups with two or more partners showed the most growth and success. This was due to a few major factors such as: accountability, teamwork and interdependence. Now the playing field has been leveled and those sole proprietors and solo venturers are matching the levels of growth and success by immersing themselves into the startup world by belonging to some form of startup group of community.  Why is this the case? Well, startup communities mimic partnerships in many ways. They create an environment of thinkers who are all along for the same ride, driving inspiration, motivation and often times even collaboration. By being in a group of fellow entrepreneurs, you feel the energy and excitement. The passion remains written on your face and there are always others around who are seeing the work you’re putting in and knowing your progression. Its quite different than when you’re alone at home working from your kitchen table with just you and your thoughts. 

In a startup community, ideas and businesses grow faster. Despite that everyone is working on a different business and cover all phases of the startup, a cohesive environment emerges - one that feels like you’re working on a team. Which, that makes sense as ultimately startup communities bring together open, likeminded people who are all working towards the same goal: startup success. 

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Marketing: Perspective is Everything

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Bye bye boss. Becoming an entrepreneur.

Taking the leap to becoming your own boss can be as exciting as it is scary. It’s maybe a lot like sky diving, where you really want to do it and talking about it is fun and easy, but that moment when you’re 12,000 feet in the air with your body on the edge of the open plane door you’re suddenly questioning why the hell you wanted this badly. The difference with making the dive into becoming your own boss and being an entrepreneur is that instead of making the jump to free fall back to solid ground, you’re sitting [somewhat] comfortably at your day job.  If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent time on the clock day dreaming about the day you walk out of that office building for the last time. Maybe even envisioning your exit, with the ‘sayonara suckers’ waltz with a glimmer of pity in your eyes from those who will remain left behind there in their gloomy beige cubicle and that pleading ‘take me with you’ puppy dog look in their eyes.  Why is it so hard to actually find this day though? I worked for years with the thought that I should work full-time while working on my startups. While I was waking up at 5am to get in a couple of hours before having to leave for the office and staying up until midnight to, again, work on the business, I was still seeing such slow progress. The idea was that I would keep a day job until my business’s income matched my earnings from my day job. When this didn’t happen, I didn’t quit. It wasn’t until one of those obvious epiphanies (you know the type that was so evident it shouldn’t be anything near an epiphany), where I realized that I would only get a full-time income out  of whatever I put full-time hours into. Simple, I know!  As this realization sunk in, I finally decided to “baby bird it” (as my best friend calls it) and made the leap to saying buh-bye to my boss and hello to working full-time for myself. It’s not an easy thing to do - especially in a culture that prizes working your way up on a corporate ladder, where social experiments have shown that a post on social media saying that you’ve gotten a promotion will gain more likes and congratulations than a post announcing that you’re going all in on your startup (you might look like you’ve lost a few screws). Regardless, life is too short to be spent doing something you don’t love and waiting for someone else to give you what you want. Maybe that’s the difference between entrepreneurs and employees, I don’t know. I do know that my new boss is the best boss I’ve ever had though and my career is really in my own hands - and it feels great :D 

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Startup, Abroad

Ever since I was pretty young I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I’m sure it was the combination of coming from an entrepreneurial family combined with being my father’s daughter (as my mom would say) and thus being the type who works best as their own boss. I always had loads of business ideas and concepts (its something that just comes very easy to me), but once I started traveling I noticed something: that every time I went to a new city or country I was left more inspired, more motivated and often with a new business idea that never would have come to me if it weren’t for my experience in that new place.  In chatting with some friends about living abroad and how life is just more exciting, we came to the realization that when you live abroad life seems to be lived exponentially - everything is more exaggerated and more extreme and your life just becomes more interesting.  So, when I fist started traveling for my own startups I found myself being much more productive. As a serial entrepreneur, I’ve started a number of companies and found that the companies that started the fastest and were the most successful were the ones where I was able to start while I was abroad for a period of time. Now, I did find a sweet spot over the years where a long weekend or even a week was a great amount of time for driving that inspiration and motivation, but it wasn’t enough time to actually work on a startup. On the other hand, if I had too much time in one place that energy and focus began to subside the more a new place became another place I called home.  With the finding that one month is something of a general ‘sweet spot’ for one location as it gives enough time so that you don’t feel the pressure to see and do everything right away, it also isn’t enough time to lose the in-awe feeling of a place either. Still, one month for most startups is not enough time to jump-start an idea or launch a business - that would be more like three months. Three months is also a good amount of time to be away from home - its long enough that its not that you’re simply going on holiday, but its not so much that life at home needs to stop for you to go.  In short, there are numerous reasons why going remote and traveling the world is a solid move for a startup. Everyone will have their own reasons, but the top benefits are: 

-3 months to focus on your startup  -Be living with fellow entrepreneurs who are working on their businesses  -No distractions of home (ie holidays, birthdays, social events, etc...)  -International resources  -No expectation of working a day job while starting up 

Thanks for reading and check out our site to learn more about how you can live abroad for three months, traveling the world, while building your startup with us by going to Global Startup Sessions. 

Cheers!

Kelly M. 

Founder, GSS 90