Startup Revolution

Warren Buffet's Haiku Deck Lesson
One of the hardest web marketing lessons my former Direct Marketing bosses taught was to think Darwinian thoughts. I wanted to improve laggards.

Don't waste your time, came the advice and important digital marketing lesson, double down on winners. This wise lesson was just taught again by Warren Buffett.

Warren's Tips For Startups Haiku Deck has been on top of the 36 decks I've created. I started watching views by deck several months ago and my DM bosses lesson holds true.

Warren Buffett's Startup Tips (http://shar.es/10AbWU )
Buffett Gains: 878
Total Views: 8,100
% Gain: 12%

Social Media: It's A Conversation Stupid (http://shar.es/10AHlZ )
Gains: 1,915
Total Views: 6,297
% Gain: 44%

Once again Buffett proves the rich get richer.

This truth doesn't mean Social Media: Its A Conversation is unimportant. Knowing what is trending is a CSF (Critical Success Factor) for any web marketing team, but Buffett does prove Darwin was a web marketing pro long before there was a web. Double down on winners and leave laggards stands as one of the most important "laws" of our web marketing ecosystem :). M

Bill Gates To Warren Buffet, STICK 'EM UP
Warren Buffet's tips for startups as Bill Gates says, "Stick 'em up".
Buffet shares great tips for startups in my most popular Haiku Deck. Next closest deck has 5,200 views.

Lessons by Marcus Lemonis of CNBC's hit show, "The Profit", for small business owners. We take a close look at lessons learned from all Season 1 episodes.

Getting your tech startup covered in press isn't easy. Nonetheless, it's one of the most valuable activities which provides your endeavor with links and

For a few years now, I’ve been investing in technology startups for a very specific reason.

Greatest Movie Never Made & Lessons Learned
"To fail is only to change the way," says Topo and Holy Mountain director Jodorowsky in this must view documentary for anyone trying to create anything. Such an important documentary I'm double posting here in Startup Revolution and in Design Revolution.

Here is what I posted in Design Revolution, the 30 Lessons in Creativity from watching this magical film:

Greatest Film Never Made
"What is he purpose of life," the director Jodorowsky asks in this must view documentary film for any creative, "to create a soul". The amazing creativity and vision of El Topo's director is shared in a series of linked stories.

Much like any creative's mind, this film flies between the surreal, heroic, mystical and crazy. Stories about Orson Wells and Pink Floyd are rich in "sounds true" detail, but pales in comparison to the "I can't type that fast" advice shared.

Advice such as:

* Be all in.
* Be a prophet.

* When it comes to missions THINK BIG (something important for humanity).
* Start with clear ideas, but find and respect "light of genius".
* Challenge people to find their best.
* Give Morning Motivation speeches.
* Your VISION should become OUR IDEA.
* OUR Ideas become art.
* When you think you are looking at a rock its an object & vice versa.
* Lucky enough to meet a prophet FOLLOW HIM.
* Be supportive of others.

* Transport people. MOVE THEM.
* Look for and work with WARRIORS (life is too short for anything else).
* Imagine and then imagine again.
* No such thing as "too far".
* Let the work rule.
* One man's obsession is another man's art.
* MOTIVATE others.

* If you can Seduce Salvador Dali DO SO.
* Create enigmas.
* If chance puts Dali at your hotel, send him a strange note.
* When you find a clock in the sand discover who lost it.
* Create MOVEMENTS and ART with your life.
* If Dali asks you for a helicopter, GIVE IT TO HIM.
* Dali gets you Giger, Giger gets you Magma (and so on).
* If you can get a meeting with Mick Jagger, TAKE IT.
* If Andy Warhol invites you to the FACTORY, go there.
* Plan everything, Plan Nothing (chance).
* When you see Orson Wells in a Paris restaurant, send wine.
* Live a EULOGY Life not a Resume Life.

That last bullet picks up on a great David Brooks TED Talk I wrote about on LinkedIn yesterday: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140717125545-13925622-are-you-living-a-resume-or-a-eulogy-life 

Hope you are living a Eulogy Life. Jodorowsky sure did. I had to be shoved kicking and screaming on the Eulogy train by the Big C. Glad I got on this train even if it turns out to be the last train from Clarksville :). M

Are you a "plural being"?

If you FAIL it's not import. It's important to try.

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/ .

The Lean Startup
Every entrepreneur and wannabe entrepreneur should read Eric Ries' The Lean Startup. Here are 6 Tips from the book:

* Build an "Innovation Factory" Using Lean Startup techniques.

* Validated Learning most important "product" in any startup.
* Find what assumptions are BRILLIANT & which ones are CRAZY.
* Create a testing & experimentation culture & experiment based on vision, core values and feedback.

* You don't know what "quality" is yet, so go early, ugly and fast and refine from feedback.

* Get Out of the Building meaning get your ideas in front of real customers as soon as possible. 

Highly recommend The Lean Startup and not JUST for startups. Great book for intrepreneurs, people trying to innovate within Fortune 1,000 companies, too.