Perhaps #FFFlip (and your #startup too) should focus on raising money from your customers rather than from investors....

As my daughter plays happily in her bedroom, I put this blog from Seth Godin here to remind me - in all the excitement of my new business idea (FFFlip) that I need to concentrate on creating value rather than just securing investment. 

Seth as ever, makes a really good point. 

One which many of my startup clients need to listen to as well. 

As he says:

"Focus to raise money from your customers. To delight more customers often enough that they happily pay you for what you can do for them. And then repeat. And again."

Perhaps making FFFlip more about creating revenue from customers rather than creating customers from investment is the better strategy. 

Anyhoo, here is the blog.... 

The struggle to raise money

When your small business is struggling, the thought of raising money feels like a life preserver.

That possible infusion of cash is a beacon of hope, the thing you can work on tirelessly. It's the one thing that appears as though it will make everything better.

Careful. It's often a detour, a distraction that won't pan out at the very same time it takes your eye off the real issues.

The problem starts with this: Few people will tell you to stop trying to raise money. They'll encourage you to polish your business plan, make more pitches, add more rigor, dream bigger. 

Add to this that it's essentially impossible to build a 1000x company, but those are the ones that get all the hype and the ones that investors crave. So you're comparing yourself to something that's quite elusive.

And finally, as you get deeper and deeper into the quest, there are individuals and institutions that will happily take advantage of you, requiring you to personally guarantee debt, to give up control, to turn your dream project into something you never envisioned.

The reason for this money trap is that so many small-business owners confuse raising money for expenses with raising money to build an asset. This is worth understanding.

If you can say, "I will spend this money on X, and X will make Y happen, and Y will pay off handsomely," then a professional investor ought to be open to hearing that story.

But the things to spend money on are a significant real estate presence, machines, patents, a permanent, expensive brand. The entrepreneur who spends this money does it with enthusiasm, because she's buying things that are going to grow in value, fast. 

This is the painting contractor who realizes that a high-powered industrial paint booth will make him the only guy in town who can do a certain kind of job. Or the fast food impresario who asserts that opening ten restaurants in one town in one year will give her the footprint to be more efficient and profitable.

But that's not the way most small business folks are wired.

We're wired to delight our customers, charge for what we do, and then spend some of that money to do it again.

If that sounds like you, pretend that it's not even possible to raise money from investors. Take the option off the table (where it isn't, really).

Instead, spend that energy and that passion and that focus to raise money from your customers. To delight more customers often enough that they happily pay you for what you can do for them. And then repeat. And again.

It's not a life preserver. Not at all. It's a stepwise path, a ramp from here to there, a process with no guru, no miracle, no signing bonus. It's merely the work.

The thing you signed up for in the first place."

So the question I have now for FFFlip as we make the tech spec for her and start the build is WHERE IS THE WOW?

As The Next Web rightly puts it - every great app needs a wow.  

Happy 4th of July. Happy #indepenceday to you - whatever it means to you. For me it means....

Today is a great day - it's Independence Day in America.

It's also my last full official day for Justaxi - Manchester's taxi comparison and booking app. 

It's been a great time and an amazing experience, which has taught me a great deal. 

I truly appreciate everything that in just six months this start up has taught me about marketing, about myself and about the wider world around us. 

So it is with this thinking I am going to do something to use my skills in marketing and start my own company, which will  specialise in mobile games and tackle some big ideas for society whilst doing so.  

The plan is to make games which help people become better people. Whatever that means. 

Mia as Elsa in nursery. 

Anyhoo - as I was listening to the words from a song from Frozen this morning (and singing along with my daughter Mia) I realised three things: 

1. Mia is the inspiration for the company / new start. 

As I want her to be great and learn through games. 

And I want her to learn to be independent as well. 

2. Mia is already great. 

She is already becoming a character. 

And I want her relationship with games and technology to be a positive one.... 

Not one which will make her sick or overweight. 

3. That the Frozen sound track rocked. 

And that this song was great too. 

Here are the words to part of it :) 


"It's funny how some distance,


Makes everything seem small.


And the fears that once controlled me, can't get to me at all


It's time to see what I can do,


To test the limits and break through.


No right, no wrong, no rules for me.


I'm free!"

(Listen to the rest here - go on you want to) 


Kinda sums up me for today. So Happy Independence Day to you... 

Whatever it means to you. 

To me it means quite a lot this year. 

Here are 17 things the most extraordinary people do every day.

 "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit." - you know who said that? This quote is always attributed to Aristotle and yet it was never written by Aristotle. This quote is from Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy. But the point is still a jolly good one. Here are 17 more. 

Taken from "17 things the most extraordinary people do every day" by BILL MURPHY JR. who is a journalist, ghostwriter, and entrepreneur.

1. Examine long-term goals.

If you don't know where you want to go, you'll probably never arrive. So, it's crucial to spend a few minutes each day thinking about where you'd like to be one, five or even 20 years from now. Your goals will change, and that's a good thing. But it's easier to act strategically when you've thought about where you want your dreams to lead.

I have done this with my mentor and coach but it is time to get them on the walls of the office. 

2. Examine daily plans.

Whether you've written it down or not, you have a to-do list. Do the tasks you're accomplishing truly contribute to your long-term goals? Nobody is 100 percent productive, and that's OK. But if you're working your tail off each day to become better at something you don't even want to be doing, that's a sign it's time for a change.

Maybe understanding mobile app analytics in depth really isn't for me - has been on my to do list for 3 months now.  Or maybe I should just...

3. Ask for help.

Nobody does anything worthwhile alone, and asking for help, when done correctly, isn't a sign of weakness--it's a sign of respect. People enjoy being reminded that their knowledge and skills have value to others. Just ask politely, respectfully and on the other person's schedule. If the help leads to a positive outcome for you, make sure you express your gratitude.  

Time to re-engage in the community as a start up and not as a consultant me thinks.

4. Engage in mentorship.

Mentorship has two sides, so on any given day, do two things: Engage with a mentor, and also offer mentorship to someone else. Not every interaction has to be profound; that would be exhausting. However, if you take a few minutes, for example, to reply to someone seeking to enter your field, and later ask a more expert friend to help you refine your start up plan.

I will contact Phil J, Garry P, and Al M and help out a friend who wanted helping. 

5. Give yourself a break.

Extraordinary people recognize that they are just that--people. We're only human, and success (however it's defined) is never an overnight thing. Should you hold yourself to high standards? Sure, but every day, give yourself a pass on a few things you did wrong, and for missing a few items on this list. You're looking for a general, rising slope in all things in life--not an uninterrupted (and unrealistic) sprint to the top. 

Tomorrow is my day off with my daughter (as a Tuesday) so I will turn off my phone and turn on the rest. 

6. Write down what happened.

Life is a journey, so keep a journal. You don't need to be a polished writer or even devote a lot of time to this; even a small effort can pay huge dividends (as we'll see in item No. 7, below). A top military leader who was working 16-hour days in a time of crisis wanted to keep a journal. His solution? Every day he wrote a single haiku poem describing what happened that day and how he felt.

I have blogged about this and then never done it - I am going to create an app which reminds me to write one sentence a day. Should be simple enough. 

7. Build your confidence.

Everybody has crises of confidence; everyone has to learn to overcome fear of failure.

The best ways to win are twofold, and we've already covered the groundwork on this list. First, engage with mentors. People who've been through similar challenges and inspire you and show you the way. Second, remember the challenges you've overcome in the past--say, perhaps, the things you wrote about in your journal. You did it then; you can do it now.

My confidence is low about my body image after being on the TV and seeing how large I have got - see picture -  so it's time for a walk out with my daughter and to find somewhere, where I can do yoga. 

8. Give thanks and compliments.

Just as you sometimes have crises of confidence, so does everyone else around you. So, make it a point to compliment others, and to express your appreciation for what they do. If you end each day having sincerely uttered the words, "thank you" to a colleague, friend, family member and even people you only interact in passing, you'll find this habit pays you back tenfold. 

I will drop everyone a text (including family members) for everyone who 'liked' and / or shared that I was on the BBC over the weekend. As the reaction truly shocked me. 

9. Focus on others.

No matter that you do, you will leave a legacy. The question is whether you'll be remembered for something positive or something negative. So, keep in mind during all interactions, that this might be someone's lasting impression of you. If you want to hear a powerful example of this in action, read this story about actor Robert Downey Jr. I won't ruin it for you; just read it.

Just read it - and if I didn't love Robert Downey Jr. or the characters he plays enough - I do now. 

10. Get some physical exercise.

It doesn't have to be much--just a 20- or 30-minute workout each day can improve your outlook and change your life.

Find me the 20 minutes.... Ok I will make 20 minutes. Christ I blog for more than an hour! 

11. Quit something.

Coming up with a great idea isn't the hard part in life. Instead, it's eliminating 99 out of 100 great ideas, so you can focus on the few that really work. The only way to do that is to be willing to give up on things you've tried but aren't paying off--nevermind the sunk costs.

This is the one that has got to me more than the others combined. 

So I quote from the hyperlink. "It's escalation of commitment,when an entrepreneur has invested resources into a new business, they have difficulty letting go even when things go south or another opportunity arises." Today I quit something, handed my notice in emotionally, and tomorrow I am going to do the same with something else. 

12. Check small things.

Extraordinary people learn to delegate effectively. That can be scary, because it requires trust. You can't possibly check everything you've delegated, but you can check some small things, which in turn creates the possibility you'll check everything.

I don't know what to do about this one - which is probably why I am still blogging so much. Ok I will outsource 75% of the new work I have coming in. 
 

13. Laugh--especially at yourself.

Comedy is the flipside of tragedy. For all the passion with which they pursue their goals, truly extraordinary people keep perspective by recognizing that a well-led life is full of humor. Thus, the most important jokes you'll ever tell are the ones about yourself, even your failures. As H.G. Wells (the writer who gave us War of the Worlds, among many other works) put it, "The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow."

Time to watch some comedy again - perhaps even listen to The Milk Run again - good stuff - a bit dark.

14. Sleep.

Seven to eight hours a night, at least. If not, you're killing your productivity and killing brain cells.

I will nap with Mia around 2 - 4pm - as been up all night blogging away....

15. Continue your education.

Lifelong learning is one of the keys to success. As my colleague Geoffrey James wrote, "[Approach] lifelong learning with a sense of fun that adds pleasure and energy to the tasks at hand. It means expanding your principles and practices so that they serve a greater purpose."

I have signed up for many coding courses.... in an attempt to... 

16. Cultivate outside interests.

All work and no play makes ... well, you know the rest. Let your mind wander every day, and feed it heartily. And, when you've stumbled upon something truly fantastic and worth telling others about...

 Wednesday

17. Share something great.

Did you hear the one about the SEO writer who walked into a bar ["best bars," "taverns" "pubs" "B&B joint," "where should I go tonight?"] (If you laughed, credit this great PR person; if you groaned, blame me.) Seriously, extraordinary people always have something to share, and something truly interesting to talk about--a joke, a story, a bit of good news. Follow their lead.

I share every day - tomorrow I will share some more :)  Perhaps you will share the original of this too?

It's 15 questions to change your life and more...

This is something I haven't done in a while. It's a version of what I have got 100's of start ups founders to do. It's 15 questions to change your life. 

This  version is from http://thinksimplenow.com/ 

And... an extra idea from Seth Godin to - if I can find it... which when it came out almost 5 years ago - no one really tweeted it much ;) 

Simple Instructions:

• Take out a few sheets of loose paper and a pen.
• Find a place where you will not be interrupted. Turn off your mobile.
• Write the answers to each question down. Write the first thing that pops into your head. Write without editing. Use point form. It’s important to write out your answers rather than just thinking about them.
• Write quickly. Give yourself less than 30 seconds per question. Apart from Q 10 and 11....
• Be honest. Nobody will read it. It’s important to write without editing.
• Enjoy the moment and smile as you write.

15 Questions:

1. What makes you smile? (Activities, people, events, hobbies, projects, etc.)

2. What are your favorite things to do in the past? What about now?

3. What activities make you lose track of time?

4. What makes you feel great about yourself?

5. Who inspires you most? (Anyone you know or do not know. Family, friends, authors, artists, leaders, etc.) Which qualities inspire you, in each person?

6. What are you naturally good at? (Skills, abilities, gifts etc.)

7. What do people typically ask you for help in?

8. If you had to teach something, what would you teach?

9. What would you regret not fully doing, being or having in your life?

10. You are now 90 years old, sitting on a rocking chair outside your porch; you can feel the spring breeze gently brushing against your face. You are blissful and happy, and are pleased with the wonderful life you've been blessed with. 

Looking back at your life and all that you’ve achieved and acquired, all the relationships you’ve developed; what matters to you most? List them out.

11. What are your deepest values? Select 3 to 6 (See list of words - thanks to Think Simple to help you) and prioritize the words in order of importance to you.

12. What were some challenges, difficulties and hardships you’ve overcome or are in the process of overcoming? How did you do it?

13. What causes do you strongly believe in? Connect with?

14. If you could get a message across to a large group of people. Who would those people be? What would your message be?

15. Given your talents, passions and values. How could you use these resources to serve, to help, to contribute? ( to people, beings, causes, organization, environment, planet, etc.)

Your Personal Mission Statement

“Writing or reviewing a mission statement changes you because it forces you to think through your priorities deeply, carefully, and to align your behaviour with your beliefs”
~Stephen Covey, ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’
A personal mission consists of 3 parts:

• What do I want to do?
• Who do I want to help?
• What is the result? What value will I create?

And from Seth Godin... 8 questions and a why

Who are you trying to please?

What are you promising?

How much money are you trying to make?

How much freedom are you willing to trade for opportunity?

What are you trying to change?

What do you want people to say about you?

Which people?

Do we care about you?

(and after each answer, ask 'why?')

And one final thought...a quote from RWE.

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” 

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mistaken Identity, HeartBleed, Happiness, Advertising and a Vow to do something different.

I watched Mistaken Identity last night with my lovely lady. The film is really not that funny and a bit sad really, in ways, I think, the creators probably hadn't thought.

But anyways - it contains a few nuggets of wisdom.

One about identity and passwords and things that we should protect. Which means this morning I updated most (if not all) of my passwords. With fear of what heartbleed is doing. 

The other point I but here for my daughter Mia to read later on in life.

It's that money simply does NOT buy you happiness. 

The lady in the film steals people's identities and then their money.

But for me it's more about the lack of happiness this brings her and the fact that she only buys things to interact with the very shop assistants selling her things.

Anyhoo this is what someone MUCH wiser than me has to say about it all...as Mr Chopra has pointed about about modern life...

"This is where a very bad idea enters the picture. It holds that money buys happiness, and the more money you have, the happier you will be. In a sense, capitalism runs on this idea, but I'm not writing to outline the flaws in capitalism. Every economic system generates its own myths and is blind to its own defects if you believe in the system. The real problem with "money buys happiness" is twofold.

First, it's not true beyond a very limited point. Having enough money to be comfortable produces more happiness than living with the stress of poverty and want. Beyond this fairly modest state of financial security (not so modest if you were born into a poor country or have an impoverished background in a rich one) money brings more stress than it's worth.

Positive psychologists seem pretty sure about this finding, looking at a broad range of subjects, although of course there are exceptions - rich people who seem exceedingly happy and poor people who seem the same. Even so, if you really care about your happiness more than your bank account, you shouldn't devote your life to the pursuit of wealth, no matter how much our society glorifies being rich and mythologizes the wealthy as if they live in a paradise on earth.

The second reason that "money buys happiness" is such a bad idea is subtler. The pursuit of money prevents you from finding happiness another way. I hold the minority position about happiness, the one that says lasting happiness depends on our state of awareness, and to find the highest state of happiness, you must reach a higher state of consciousness.

The same view has been held for centuries by all the world's wisdom traditions, and ironically, now is the best time to test it out. In the past, the average person was helpless in the face of poverty, war, and disease. That's no longer true for millions of people who have enough control over their destiny to pursue happiness rather than simply try to survive.

It would be a shame to waste this golden opportunity by thoughtlessly adhering to such a bad idea as "money buys happiness." From the seed of this idea grows offspring, such as the idea that poverty means that you are an inferior person, a loser, or the idea that winning is everything, since winning implies monetary rewards.

Then there's the idea that you can use your money to buy so many glittery toys and distractions that these will constitute happiness, and so on. The truth is that happiness is an inner pursuit that is very different from the pursuit of pleasure or the amassment of a fortune. No one should accept this as a given; it needs to be tested out personally.

In the end, the message of the world's wisdom traditions is a call to find out the truth for yourself.

 It just helps to clear away the underbrush of untruths, and "money buys happiness" is just that.


Deepak Chopra, MD, Founder of The Chopra Foundation, Co-Founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing, coauthor of Super Brain with Rudolph Tanzi and for more information visit The Universe Within. Come to the Chopra Foundation Sages and Scientists Symposium 2014."

To end I leave you Mia (and others that might read this) with a lovely advertisement from a country far away. 

Which proves for me two things: 

1. Advertising CAN do something positive.

2. Far away places are somehow much better than ours.

The advert is on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZGghmwUcbQ

The other reason is that at 14.04 today I am going to vow (whilst outside) to re start my own business.

Doing something outside of my time with  Justaxi - Manchester's taxi comparison app

Why 14.04pm you wonder? No reasons apart from it being 14.04 and 14.04.14.

I hope 4's are powerful. 1024 seems to be doing well with them :)

As the idea is in mobile gaming - perhaps it is something I can do with Justaxi as well?

Tonight I will do this - a simple action list.

Taken from a blog of someone who has a book coming out which I think I will buy if on Kindle. 

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.

Distinguishing the “trivial many” from the “vital few” can be applied to every kind of human endeavor and has been done so persuasively by Richard Koch, author of several books on how to apply the Pareto Principle to everyday life. Indeed, the examples are everywhere.

Think of Sir Isaac Pitman, the inventor of shorthand, who discovered that just 700 words make up two-thirds of our language (further validated by Zipf's Law).

Think of Warren Buffett’s philosophy, quoted by Mary Buffett and David Clark in The Tao of Warren Buffett, “You only have to do a few things right in your life, so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.” 

The authors continue, “Warren decided early in his career it would be impossible for him to make hundreds of right investment decisions, so he decided that he would invest only in the business that he was absolutely sure of, and then bet heavily on them. He owes 90% of his wealth to just ten investments. Sometimes what you don’t do is just as important as what you do.”

Now that IS a book I have read. And took to heart. 

The advice in there is similar to what can happen with software and mobile apps - two things I love - as often you can have an app that tries to do too many things and therefore does nothing well. The same can be said for software and even computer games. Often simple is best. 

Which is something we are finding out at JusTaxi - Manchester's taxi fare comparison app - as under my (and others) thinking we removed half of the screens and at least two features / functions. This resulted in a 200% increase in numbers of people booking the best taxi prices in Manchester on our app.  

On a different but similar vein, about not being overwhelmed, Greg McKeown who wrote this article says - he recommends a simple action list.

1. Before you leave the office today, write down your top six priorities for tomorrow on a Post-it note.

2. Cross off the bottom five.

3. Write down your priority on a Post-it note and put it on your computer.

4. Schedule a 90-minute window to work on your top priority — preferably the first thing of the day.

5. Every time you are about to check email, Facebook, Twitter etc., write down what you are about to do.

Let's see how this goes. 

Treat different people differently... but how?

We are just doing some customer research at Justaxi - a mobile phone app which helps you get the best price taxi service in Manchester - and so this blog by Seth Godin is rather well timed.

He has a great point - but in a way - he doesn't have the answer.

His point is treat different people differently.

"Don't teach your students as if they are a monolithic population of learners. They learn differently, they have different goals, different skills, different backgrounds.

Don't sell to your customers as if they are a fungible commodity, a walking ATM waiting for you to punch. Six of one are not like half a dozen of the other. They tell themselves different stories, have different needs and demand something different from you.

Different voters, different donors, different employees--we have the choice to treat them as individuals. Not only do they need different things, but they offer differing amounts of value to you and to your project.

The moment your policy interferes with their uniqueness, the policy has cost you something.

We used to have no choice. There was only one set of data for the student body, one way to put things on the shelf of the local market, one opportunity to talk to the entire audience...

One of the biggest unfilled promises of the digital age is the opportunity to go beyond demographics and census data. Personalization wasn't supposed to be a cleverly veiled way to chase prospects around the web, showing them the same spammy ad for the same lame stuff as everyone else sees.

No, it is a chance to differentiate at a human scale, to use behavior as the most important clue about what people want and more important, what they need.

It's a no-brainer to treat the quarterback of the football team differently from the head of the chess club. We treat our bank's biggest investor with more care than someone who merely wants to trade in a bag of pennies. Instead of reserving this special treatment for a few outliers, though, we ought to consider what happens if we offer it to all of those we value.

The long tail of everything means that there's something for everyone--a blog to read, a charity to donate to, a skill to learn. When you send everyone the same email, demand everyone learn from the same lesson plan or try to sell everyone the same service, you've missed it.

A very long time ago, shoe salespeople realized that shoes that don't fit are difficult to sell, regardless of what you've got in stock. Today, the people you serve are coming to realize that like their shoe size, their needs are different, regardless of what your urgent agenda might be.

So.... what does this mean for an taxi comparison app like JusTaxi - in truth - I don't know. I know that it means that perhaps we aim for personalization but how we do that - is in the hands of the techies - which means.... we will have to ask nicely and tread softly.

Perhaps bringing in the Facebook and social login's will make a difference as the more we know about each customer the more we can personalise the offer. But how much can you personalize the best price on a taxi in Manchester?  

The selfish cynic

This is taken from Seth Godin's Blog:The selfish cynic

Cynics are hard to disappoint.

Because they imagine the worst in people and situations, reality rarely lets them down.

 Cynicism is a way to rehearse the let-downs the world has in store--before they arrive.

And the cynic chooses this attitude at the expense of the group. Because he can't bear to be disappointed, he shares his rehearsed disappointment with the rest of us, slowing down projects, betting on lousy outcomes and dampening enthusiasm.

Someone betting on the worst outcomes is going to be correct now and then, but that doesn't mean we need to have him on our team. I'd rather work with people brave enough to embrace possible futures at the expense of being disappointed now and then.

Don't expect kudos or respect for being a cynic. It's selfish.

---------

But I am amazed how many people seem to "get employed" to be the company cynic.

And even more people start a business with the same outlook!

Especially when it comes to technology and marketing.

The amount of small business owners who still tell me social media marketing doesn't work and wouldn't work for their business is disappointingly high in this country.  Maybe it's this cynical mindset?

Manchester must look to the east.

Many moons ago I came to Manchester, home of both red and blue teams, home of innovation, industry and the industrial revolution, home of the very first computer, and home or maybe the birth place to many many globally important cultural cultures, I came here because I believed that Manchester could be the start of something once again.

Some ten years on.... I am I so sure?

Well, Chancellor George Osborne has called on Manchester to lead the UK in what he has termed the "second industrial revolution". A term I am sure someone has used before... but anyway.

Speaking at the launch of the Manchester-China Forum on Friday (26 April 2013), he said the city had a real opportunity to "do something strategic for our economy for decades to come" as it seeks to build closer links with the Far East.

"I am absolutely passionate about trying to improve and increase the economic links between our country and China," he said.
"Manchester was the first industrial city in the world; it led an economic revolution that transformed our entire planet.
"We are now in the midst of a second industrial revolution; a shift in economic power to the East and South, and I want Manchester to lead, for our country. "The British government will be 100 per cent behind this."

Now for whatever reasons I am not always 100% behind what the government says - but this is something I can very much get behind.

As myself I went to study the South East Asian region last year for several months last year. And I have also been to Hong Kong and China with the UKti.

So the new Manchester-China Forum is an interesting proposal for me to be potentially involved in - as it is a business-led initiative aimed at increasing Greater Manchester's commercial connectivity, including trade and investment with China.

It follows a report by Lord Nat Wei in 2012 which identified China as a strategic priority for the city.

Lord Wei said at the event: "This country needs growth and cities have traditionally been the major way in which we grow.
"While Germany has made a living over the past 30 years by providing tools for China's manufacturing development, so we can now help to unlock the country's services and consumption sector, city by city.

"This forum recognises Manchester as the original industrial city which can be a source of growth in an advanced manufacturing age."

Lord Wei cited examples of the forum model in the US, which had helped cities to establish links in China over the past 20 years.
"If the city thrives and trades with China then businesses will thrive as well," he added.

The Manchester-China Forum is being chaired by Charlie Cornish, chief executive at Manchester Airports Group, and includes a raft of private and public sector partners across the city region.

It sounds like something everyone from Manchester should be involved in whether you are part of the digital mobile creative scene (what I like to call the advanced manufacturing sector) or part of the new Graphene and what everyone else calls the advanced manufacturing sector ;)

Either way - perhaps sticking around Manchester is no bad thing for a few more years yet.

I gotta stop doing this - I Gotta Stop Trying to Catch Lightning in a Bottle

A couple of points so wise from Mark Sustner that I pop them here to remember them. So I will TAKE ACTION at my new start up company.

Today I get my developers to launch the game - hopefully with my client at Justaxi - on my final day - NO matter what..............

I also went to the Lean Start Up Manchester event last night - which inspired me. This is a great blog from Mark as well.

"I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying derived from Voltaire - “don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good” which in a way is encapsulated in the lean startup movement and the ideology of shipping a “minimum viable product” (MVP) and then learning from your customer base.

Or to borrow a simple life lesson from Gretchen Rubin,

“The 20-minute walk I take is better than the 3-mile run I never start. Having people over for take-out is better than never having people to an elegant dinner party.”

I think about this topic of perfection being the enemy of the good often. Because I live in startup land where everybody is a perfectionist. I think this is particularly true because every startup entrepreneur is trying to catch lightning in a bottle.

I hear about it in every first product release. You can see it in the founders’ eyes. They want the perfect feature set, the PR company lined up to do the perfect press release, they want maximum coverage, rave reviews, viral adoption and they want to sit back and then wait for the signups to come roaring in.

Life doesn’t work like that. And gearing yourself up for a lighting-in-a-bottle moment leads to bad company decisions.

Even in the age of MVP worship I see founders who want to bundle too many features into a release because they’re worried that customers will be unhappy if they don’t.

I see teams holding back on product releases even when the product is complete because they’re nervous it’s not yet good enough to get positive journalist reviews.

They hold back on announcing their funding because they want to be sure they have 3 other important announcements to bundle – I often counsel against this.

Stop trying to catch lighting in a bottle.


Your announcement will lead to more traffic than you’ve had in the past. But it’s highly unlikely to have that aha moment that Apple gets when it announces new products.

The much more likely result is that you get some positive feedback from the community, you get some strong users who like your product, you get some people telling you your product isn’t as good as the competitors or isn’t as good as your marketing hype.

That’s ok.

Launch and learn.

JFDI.

No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.

So the sooner you’re live the sooner you’ll be able to separate your own internal BS from what the market really wants and thinks.

The other reason I counsel so much on this topic is confidence.

You gear your team up for your TC Disrupt presentation, your interview with Kara Swisher, your graduation day from YC and waiting for the product success.

And when it doesn’t come in droves it feels like defeat. And the whole company feels it because you set expectations too high.

The golden rule of management is to set low expectations and beat them. Lightning in a bottle breaks the cardinal rule.

So be prepared for the marathon. Expects a long, slow linear climb.

After all – some people win the lottery. And that’s who you read about in the papers. And it feels nice to think that $285 million is just one Lotto ticket away.

But you’re a pragmatist. And you know that your success will come from the hard work and refinement of 20 different product releases each that incrementally made you the great company that you are.

And by being in the game long enough – if you’re lucky, smart & tenacious – you might just see that traffic & revenue arc up.

p.s. no – I’m not talking about your specific company. I know I gave you this advice so you think I’m picking on you. I give this advice to every young startup. Promise."

Do you know how old Meetup is? It's another overnight success isnt it? Hmmm.... quite a few nights ;)

This morning - I woke at 500am - all excited about gamifaction and how this concept, along with my usual toolkit of cutting edge digital marketing could and will help this particular client. But then I realized something - not only had I woke up my wife by not turning down the ipad backlight (school boy error) but also that I had been doing this for around a decade. If not more...

This waking up excited by new marketing projects with new ideas for clients for 10 years.


Doing greatmarketing talks and trainings for organizations and companies for at least 7 years.

Working in marketing and events promotion before that for Spearfish for at least another 3.

And in guerrilla marketing for eco fashion label THTC before that for more years than I care to remember.

The point is that - success - doesn't seem to come over night.

So I read with interest something from Fred Wilson, who is a VC and principal of Union Square Ventures.

Who invested in Meetup. That great idea which I thought was new. As an app and all that.

But do you know how old meetup is? As Fred writes:

"Meetup is in its second decade as a company and growing rapidly. Last night Meetup booked its hundred millionth RSVP. You can see the counter at the top of this page. That is one hundred million people who used the Internet to get off the Internet and go out and meet other people and talk about things they are passionate about. Now I realize that some of these hundred million people are the same people doing this again and again. But even so, a hundred million RSVPs is a big deal for a company that has been plugging away on this mission for more than a decade.

When you are at something for a decade or more, it can become a slog. It requires tenacity and persistence to keep pushing and innovating. In the past year Meetup has started growing faster than it has in quite a while. The chart below shows that:


Scott and his team are as passionate about the Meetup mission as they were when they started the company. They have a very long timeframe in their minds and they are executing against it. And they are winning with tenacity and persistence. Which is why we backed Meetup in the first place."

I love that - an investor with a vision more than 10 years ahead of its time. Now that's what I need :)

Or is it - should I stop this path of helping companies succeed and succeed myself? For this I might well need a little "seed" capital. Pun horribly intended.