Startup Revolution

Brand Ideals
Learning your company's "brand ideals" may be the most important branding work few startups accomplish. SEO and content take a backseat to widget development for most startups. 

Yet isn't the most important question WHERE are the points of connection with potential customers and/or investors? The latter, investors, receive plenty of attention when they are easy. Investors want CONSUMERS and lots of 'em.

So the best way to connect with investors is to connect with consumers and the best way to connect with consumers is to know, articualte and share your "brand ideals":

 * Eliciting Joy: Activating experiences of happiness, wonder, and limitless possibility.
* Enabling Connection: Enhancing the ability of people to connect with each other and the world in meaningful ways.
* Inspiring Exploration: Helping people explore new horizons and new experiences.
* Evoking Pride: Giving people increased confidence, strength, security, and vitality.
* Impacting Society: Affecting society broadly, including by challenging the status quo and redefining categories.  

Those "brand ideals" come from Grow: How Ideals Power Profits At The World's Largest Companies by Jim Stengel and is a must read for any startup entrepreneur who wants investors....after they've won the hearts and minds of consumers. 

On “Charlie Rose,” Deena Varshavskaya, founder and chief executive officer at Wanelo. The online social media app connects millions of consumer with some of the biggest brands, as well as the tiniest of independent boutiques.

Marty Note
Listening to WaNeLo's founder discuss her experience raising money and goals for her social shopping company made me realize I was listening to the sound of a clean slate brand. Wanelo is the first salvo in the "social shopping" wars sure to erupt.

Rose asks a good question, "Why won't Twitter and Facebook follow your lead?" They will and Deeena's best defense is a good offense. I signed up for Wanelo and its an intriguing play that couldn't exist without smart phones.

There's "mobile first" and then there is a company like Wanelo who is conceived and could only be possible with mobile. When Deena mentioned that more than 80% of their traffic is mobile my heart skipped a beat and I realized how clean slate this affiliate money play really is.

By mashing up retailers and accepting affiliate money Wanelo has to create a fun and exciting interface. They are about half way there. The way you create your store with swiping is cool and a #muststeal idea, but there is little more to recommend or hold interest currently.

Rose asked all the right questions about WHY and being first is a big recommendation, but not the only thing needed to survive. The UI is worth some money and their more than a million young followers are worth a lot too. Deena correctly locates the biggest challenge in today's market - getting people to love and interact with your content NOT mining or creating some unique Intellectual Property (IP) that can be protected and held over others.

Wanelo walks into social shopping, creates a "game console" using smart phones and will probably be adding gamification soon (if they are half as smart as they seem) and there is the first mover advantage. Important interview about the future of "social shopping".

You’ll often find me in some huge debates online on anything related to politics, religion and capitalism… all the red-hot buttons that most people avoid. It’s why I have personal and branded presences across social media. If you want marketing only, follow the brand. If you want me, follow me… but be careful… you get all of me.+

While I’m an unabashed capitalist, I also have a big heart. I believe we should help one another and not depend on bureaucracies that are inefficient and ineffective. I truly believe the way we change things is by taking personal responsibility and helping to be the catalysts for change. Our agency is always donating time, money and other resources to not just help charities… but to also help businesses that don’t have the resources but have promise. +

It’s no longer good enough to just have a social media presence. Marketing 3.0 will be won by those who become purpose-driven social brands, and to do so, the CMO, CSO, CSR, and Foundation leads must align to bring a cohesive brand story to life. Check out We First’s infographic below with some cold hard facts that make it clear the future of profit is purpose, and the most iconic brands of the future will be those that drive the most meaningful social change. Simon Mainwaring

It’s not just the right thing to do, being purpose-driven is also becoming an expectation of businesses, the motivation for employees and a growing buying habit by consumers. People want their money to go to businesses that are environmentally aware, treat their employees well, and invest time and energy in making the world a better place. +

I’m glad purpose-driven marketing is becoming a growing strategy and topic of conversation – I’ve written before about the frustration I have when people criticize cause marketing (we discussed this with the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge… ugh). I’d encourage every company to promote the efforts they’re making to help those around them – this inforgraphic points to why!

Via Brian Yanish - MarketingHits.com, John van den Brink, Ricard Lloria

Brands should take inspiration from the motivation behind love letters when they communicate with their customers. Marketers can unlock the value of users’

Maybe our web marketing needs to slow down, build online community and curate more? Thomas Hellum's slow TV provides valuable lessons in what's next online.

Here are a few of Slow TV's valuable lessons in the creation of sustainable online community:

• Social media + mobile = powerful community building tools combination.
• Happening NOW creates an “event-like” atmosphere especially if you don’t edit the timeline.
• Pre-sell community with an ASK, “What do you want to see”.
• Use the web for support before, during and after event.

Free Genius Lunches in Columbus Ohio
I'm living in Columbus, Ohio at the Blackwell Inn on the Ohio State University's campus from now until December 3rd (being treated by Dr. Byrd at the James Cancer Center). I love meeting, discussing and learning from fellow startups, entrepreneurs, artists and cool smart people.

I'm stealing @Phil Buckley Genius Lunch idea to see what is happening in Columbus. Team Curagami stands ready to answer Internet marketing questions and learn new tips, tricks and ideas. If you would like to have a Genius Lunch in Columbus check the calendar and email when you would like to meet. 

Lear More Here
http://bit.ly/Free-Genius-Lunch-Columbus  

Clean Slate Brands
Time doesn't guarantee anything anymore. "Proudly in business for 100 years," sounds great until Uber cleans your clock. http://www.uber.com re-imagined what "cab" means in a mobile / social / reputation time.

I took my first Uber ride in Columbus, Ohio last week and it was EASY. I've also used Columbus Yellow Cab and spoken to the owner. Columbus Yellow Cab provided excellent service minus one important thing - a way to monitor how far my ride is.

Columbus Yellow Cab has an app too, one I will use on my next trip to Columbus this Wednesday, but Uber is a "clean slate" brand with little preconceived notions about owning anything OTHER than the most disruptive technology the cab business has ever seen.

Uber is about to change the very definition of "cab". And Uber isn't alone as this Trendwatching post about Clean Slate Brands shares.

Need Your Help
I'm writing the Ultimate Content Curation Guide For Business and need your help. If you love content curation please share thoughts about:

* How would you define content curation for business?
* Is content curation different for SMBs than big brands? If yes, how?
* How should startups curate content?
* What are your favorite content curation tools.

Send your thoughts on these questions or anything content curation related to martin(at)Curagami.com. Thanks, Marty

Great Daniel Ek +Spotify Founder Interview On Utilities As Experiences
Great conversation with Spotify's Swedish founder on +The Charlie Rose Show… - Martin W. Smith - Google+

Lunch With Smart Dogs at Triangle Startup Factory
Kip Frey (www.linkedin.com/pub/kip-frey/36/b09/384 pictured in middle above) is a smart entrepreneur who one might say has "gone to the dogs". Kip spoke at Free Lunch Friday at +Triangle StartUp Factory today about Dognition (https://www.dognition.com/ ).

Dognition is a Myers/Briggs personality test for dogs. During an hour long fascinating conversation Kip made several points we've heard consistently from Chris and Dave at TSF such as:

* Ideas that "seem true" create their own momentum.
* Look for ideas that "create a new category".
* Ideas with great partnership hooks work best since partners help create scale with OPL (Other Poeple's Lists) and OPC (Other People's Content).

Dognition is a cool idea since we humans are always anthropomorphizing our animals. Now you can do a test AT HOME with your dog to figure out which one of 9 classifications your dog's personality falls within. You can compare your dog to dogs in your area, across the country or possibly the world (soon Kip mentioned they are already speaking to interested parties in China).

I found Kip and Dognition's #brandingstrategy fascinating. Kip and the team at Dognition spent a year working on the #DIY version of their test. They needed enough data shared by "citizen scientists" after taking their test that the hard work created in the lab held up even in the DIY home version.

"I think people are more interested in their dogs than in their DNA," Kip said at one point and I agree. There are 70M dog owning families in America (so one in three roughly) and each year brings 7M new dogs to market.

_____________________________________
Branding            vs                   Scale

The tension between creating a brand with meaning and the scale necessary to support that meaning was interesting. Kip decided to do a deal with Purina One to gain scale. Sounds like he had to defend the sizable deal with his board because they were worried about "brand purity".

#branding is tricky. Too much scale too fast could marginalize the brand. The science at the core of the test is something that could be seen as goofy in the wrong context. By doing an exclusive with Purina One for 2014 Dognition gets millions in partner ad dollars - the test is a freebie if dog owners complete a 28 day "Purina One 28 Day Challenge" (http://www.purinaone.com/dogs/28-Day-Challenge/main-page ).

Cool promo and great legitimacy for Dognition and possibly just the right amount of scale. Partnerships bring interesting challenges. Dognition can get swallowed whole by Purina, and can anyone spot the BIG #socialmarketing error on the Purina One challenge page? http://www.purinaone.com/dogs/28-Day-Challenge/main-page

ERROR - Love that Purina is using Tweets, but seeing 46 day old Tweets HURTS the social legitimacy of their campaign. A 46 day old tweet from a customer is fine IN ROTATION, but what if the only representation I see has old content?

When curating old and new social content from Purina and users always have something in the roll that is current, only several hours hold max. Using customer Tweets is brave, but stale in its current implementation. Even if the Purina staff creates Tweets today that related to something that happened 46 days ago have something current on social.

Building  a #story off of #UGC is what +CrowdFunde is all about. Conversations require different #contentcuration and #contentcreation than promotional push. Purina One's misuse of #SMM is a perfect validation for a tool like CrowdFunde that helps create, curate and converse with the most valuable content on earth - User Generated Content (UGC).

By isolating old tweets without a clear understanding about why they are there, other than being self congratulatory, Purina destroys what they hope to build - active, alive conversations.

We think Dognition will have great conversations since learning your dog's personality feels like something MADE for social shares, but HOW you share social conversations is tricky as a big brand like Purina proves. Turning conversations into #engagemn and #loyalty is trickier still.

Cool talk today with many lessons for #startups and #Internetmarketers . Dognition is going to be on 60 Minutes in April and they will have a reality TV show on Nat Geo Wild so conversations will happen. Team at CrowdFunde wishes our fellow Durham #startup   luck and a free CrowdFunde installation if they want to discover how to build community on a scale hard to knock down or duplicate...because building ongoing engagement after initial novelty is based on the quality, frequency and value of Dognition's (and any brand's) CONVERSATIONS!

Thanks to Kip for speaking with TSF startups today! Marty

PS. Kip asked for feedback on the Dognition site and since I know there are a lot of ecommerce conversion experts that follow me send me your thoughts and I will pull together 5 to 10 "would be better if" kinds of feedback for https://www.dognition.com/ .

If after a grinding six months of work you'd told me I would be able to create an ecommerce store in 5 days for FREE (other than my time) I would have said you were crazy. Turns out I did just that over the last four sleepless nights.

The BIG lesson from launching the Story of Caner Store (every dollar raised goes to help the Story of Cancer Foundation and projects such as http://www.curecancerstarter.org) is EVERY business should have a "new ecommerce" store.

Stores provide SEO, branding and customer engagement benefits. If you can achieve ONE of those three things for little of no investment wouldn't you? Most Internet marketing teams would say YES.

I would too.

Hope you will shop the Story of Cancer Store this weekend and appreciate your support. There are some rough edges still, so comment or email MartinSelllingZoe(at)aol and I will fix.

http://storyofcancer.gostorego.com/