Category Archives: Sales / Marketing

53 – A Refined Filter Is The Inevitable Result Of Startup Weekend – Nov 12 2012

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So a friend of mine convinced me to attend a Startup Weekend – http://www.startupweekend.org . I don’t like talking in this forum but siffice to say, in the minutes before the event actually kicked off, I had met a fellow participant and while we were reading over the program documentation, I said to my new friend, “why wait for the weekend? There are people in every city coming up with solutions for issues. There are developers living all over the country. There are investors looking to be part of the next cool product. Why are we limiting the process to location. This entire process could be automated on the web and the connection wouldn’t depend on location.

The first thing that came to mind was the inevitable cherry picking of ideas that would occur if all the ideas from a startup weekend were to be posted online for people to scan through. No bueno. So the solution goes like this. Users would register for access, establish an account, a login, pay a fee and enter a specific, moderated discussion room. Within this room would be only the participants during a particular time frame or session. The ideas could be submitted via uploaded 1 minute video (which would reduce the dilemma of stage fright that hits some folks when they get a microphone handed to them and they are standing in front of 150 people). One at a time, the videos could be privately streamed to each participants screen, with buttons on the player making it easy to highlight, dismiss, or favorite certain ones. After the viewing, there could be a deliberation period and then a vote would be electronically gathered from all participants.

The top 10% of the ideas could be announced in an automated product, with contact information and team forming could begin from the group involved.

Here’s a huge value part of this model. During startup weekend, you do not have the exact team you want. You may need more developers, or a business developer, or a designer. There may only be one or two business developers in the building, and they are already on another team. With an online solution, you could build in a connection to a “freelance.com” type of site, where developers were standing by, for a fee or rate, and you could have an affordable solution on the team in a matter of a couple hours.

Now, you have a predetermined amount of time to get your presentations put together, again, the end result is a 5 or 10 minute video presentation.

A couple of problems with Startup Weekend, is that you have 5 minutes to pitch an unknown panel, who may not have any idea what you are pitching about, and in my case, you may not be able to conceivably even get them to comprehend the concept. It is a fact that the better decision will be made, the more informed the panel is. Specifically, if you had a 10 minute video, a website, a business plan, and some manner of a video representation of product demonstration, it would be more valuable than just a 5 minute presentation with a 3 minute Q&A.

Some other advantages to this model. You would be able to have focused events. Medical, academic, entertainment, and other folcused get togethers would bring a better, more porductive group of ideas and likewise you would have a better, more aware panel to be selling the finished product to.

I won’t argue that it is really cool to do white board brainstorming in person with your team, and it’s very cool to just disconnect from the normal grind and get lost in the process, in person. That being said, the advantages of a global monthly get together being available to those who were interested far outweight what geography would limit the average participant.

I may pitch this at a Startup Weekend. 🙂

7 – Custom Starbucks Mugs – Use Iconic Brands to Connect with Fans – 28 Sept 2012

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As of this posting, this is an unsponsored blog, with no corporate ties.  Still having coffee on the brain, I came up with a stellar idea for certain iconic brands to consider, and I will use Starbucks as the model.  The logo is known throughout much of the world, and it is more than likely a sacred thing, but I would think it could be to a huge benefit of customer loyalty to consider setting up a special option for fans to have their own image subtly mixed into the original image.

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And here is a side by side of the original Starbucks logo, and one that I made with my girl’s lovely face.  I did this in about 10 minutes on MS Paint, so that should be a testament to the low difficulty level in the concept.  I did it to give the love of my life just another example of how I see her in everything I do.  It made for a nice Facebook pic, but I immediately thought, “hey, they really could make money doing this, and it would only enhance the loyalty and recognition of the original.”

In all actuality I could set down with a programmer and in short order have a web page built that would allow users to fabricate their own personal Starbucks logo.  They could use a single picture they had, or draw it in manually if they wanted, approve it, and send to be manufactured, all without the need for any personal assistance.  I won’t even mention that certain holidays are coming that would be very conducive to the creation of such things.  Then my mind turns to the reverse of this rather subtle modification.  I have a friend who is a beer drinker, and his initials are MDG.  You could easily just modify the logo for MGD and put his name in there, instead of Miller Genuine Draft for the coolest mug, t-shirt or bar mirror a fellow could hope for.  Why not a six pack. The colors and logo make for the recognition, not necessarily the text.  It could work with the initials PBJ.  You could put any name in place of Coke or Pepsi and the logo will always make the connection for you, regardless of the name. There are plenty of ideas out there, and the concept is a winner.  Make your brand accessible and something that fans of yours can connect and identify with, and you drive more people to your product.

Negotiate with a group of companies who would rather farm the process out to someone else, and you could launch a firm that just does this.  Let’s see how long it takes for someone to pick up this idea.  🙂 Onto tomorrow’s thought.