Start Up Blog

I’m sure there are examples of people who’ve been successful by simply being good at what they do. But there are more examples of world beaters who are ‘into’ what they do.

I’m into this blog. I love writing it. I did it with as much enthusiasm when 10 people read it each month as I do now when more than 20,000 do.

Some of my favourite entrepreneurs are really into what they do.

Branson loves music & flying.

Trump loves real estate & the deal

Steve Jobs is really into design & aesthetics

Lindsay Fox loves trucks and cars (he even has ‘truck driver’ as the title on his business card!)

Doug Warbrick loves surfing….

Doug and his surfing partner Brian started Ripcurl, the surfing company. They started making surfboards in the late 1960’s and shortly after made some the first surfing wetsuits the world has seen. He made the wetsuits so he could endure the harsh Victorian winter and enjoy the best waves of the year down there.

They just kept making really good surfing equipment. Which they also sold, 40 years on Ripcurl is now one of the three dominant companies in the Industry, valued at well over $500 million.

Ripcurl founders & store circa 1970, followed by curent retail outlet

Are you into your job, business or startup, or just passing the days?

The best innovations no less ‘ entrepreneurial success’ comes from people who are really into what they do.

Do, mistake, learn, improve, repeat.

Do, mistake, learn, improve, repeat…

Do it fast. Continue in perpetuity.

The key word is the first one - ‘Do‘. Unless we take action we remain largely philosophical about what might happen. It’s only we act that we find out the truth and formula of startup success above can eventuate.

Really the title should say “people” - we don’t do business with customers, it’s the greatest lie of all time. People trade with people. But I just gave it that title so I could teach people this who stumbled upon this blog entry…

So here’s how we do it at rentoid.com

We have a live chat session with our people. Answer all their questions, assess their concerns and just get to know them. Tonight we are doing it at 7.30pm Aust Syd / Melbourne time.

Go here to log on: http://rentoid.com/live

You can see the startup blog author in action live and see if he (me) can deliver it all live. So tune in, tell your friends and get a shout out!

While discussing marketing theory with a colleague from Melbourne University – lecture Jeremy Apsey, he came up with a cool quote:

“Theory is nothing more than the accumulation of our historical knowledge.”

He then went onto say… “We need to be able to think both ways, theory into practice and practice into theory”

As entrepreneurs I’ll word it as follows:

‘We must be able to think then act, as well as act then think’

here’s no electricity required for th business tool below. And this ‘app’ is only a few thousand years oldSome times the old! The notepad.

This one is the really small type you can fit in your back pocket. When you have an idea - jot it down.

One page 1 - You ahve a list of things to do. You cross them off when they are done. Easy.

On an aiplane you don’t have to wait until crusing altitude to use it. You never run out of batteries. No compatibility issues. Light and compact. Everything is automatically in chronological order. It’s the ultimate in user friendly.

Sure , we all need and use our cell phones. Most of the technology we adpot is super useful. But the really great technology reduces complexity. And sometimes the old school methods are still best.

When things are going well – know one ever asks any questions. Whether it’s school work, your job, your business or startup. People don’t ask analyse how they got there. They’re just glad they are.

What this means is very important for entrepreneurs:

It is possible for things to work and not know why they did. Especially if it’s our first shot at it.

Sure, we may have had a strategy, plan or even defined tactics – but they may have nothing to do with the success we achieved.

photo by Aviva

This is why mistakes are rad. It’ easy to find out where things went wrong. It’s as simple as crossing that idea off the list and moving onto the next one. We learn from mistakes, rarely success. In addition they teach us important entrepreneurial habits like tenacity. Making them also means we are not suffering from inertia.

The best days for entrepreneurs are the ones when we make the most mistakes.

How many mistakes did you make today?

Since we’ve been going through a massive growth spurt at rentoid - I’ve been thinking about the skills which matter. The skills which will take us from start up - to business. That stuff that happens after we’ve proved our concept and people are getting involved in what we do. And here’s my conculsions:

1. Project management. We must get the stuff done we’ve been talking about with our customers quickly. They haven’t got time to wait for us to get our act together. We must deliver our promises, or lose them forever.

2. Leadership. Keep the team inspired and motivated, while maintaining the culture we believe in and have already created. Just because we are starting to achieve our goals doesn’t mean we need to invent systems, create paperwork and lose trust for each other. This is where we prove there is another way to do things in business & life.

3. Maintain Momentum. Go ‘back to back’ in sporting parlance. The ability to maintain public interest and is difficult after unpaid national TV coverage. We’ve got to keep the tap running, keep communicating and getting coverage. This is where communication frequency becomes way more important than communication depth.

Another great way to keep ‘em talking about rentoid?

We make sure we deliver on all the stuff we said we’d do - refer point 1.

I took this photo in a local mall in Melbourne on August 9^th – The coldest part of winter.

Anyone who lives in or has been to Melbourne knows it’s still very cold until November. Yet the clothing retail chain above already has summer clothes only in the display window. And they’ve already started their winter clothes clearance – in the middle of winter!

The top temperature on said day was 11ºc / 55ºf with snow falls down to 400m.

Here’s the weather forecast for Melbourne for the coming week:

This is retail gone mad – for a few reasons:

They are selling their ‘winter’ stock ‘during winter’ at a 70% discount?

Consumers don’t care about their buying seasons, just what the weather’s like – right now.

Melbourne people don’t care what the weather’s like in Queensland.

People’s lives are too busy to buy clothing 4 months in advance.

They are letting their supply chain get in front of what consumers actually need and want.

No prizes for guessing the store was empty.

If we buy hot soup on cold days, and ice cream on hot days, why should clothing be any different? It’s not. And is less so, as time becomes the finite resource.

If you’re a start up in the retail arena.

Startup blog says: make your range, match the ‘real’ world. You’ll be far ahead of any retail chain.

Music Max, the usually good music channel on cable / pay TV has lost it. While blogging with Tv on in background, I’ve looked up to see the “Non stop top 5000 - Gold Medal Marathon”.

Now this is a stretch - really pushing it uphill. Most people don’t even know 5000 songs, let alone like more than 1000. Don’t believe me? Look at your most played itunes list, or even better those songs on it you’ve never played at all.

They are currently up to song 4300 and still I haven’t heard a song I know in an hour. If Music Max is trying some ‘one upsmanship’, Startup blog suggests they give it a miss. This is a classic example of more being less, much much less.

Startups - focus on one downsmanship. Be specific.

Saw this on Twitter - worth sharing with fellow entrepreneurs. You can follow on Twitter here