Monocle is a great source of juicy global nuggets of information... news, commerce, politics... all their stories (at least those that I've reviewed) have a sincere, local feel to them, offering a vivacity and honesty to the people and places they capture.
One of the latest episodes (it's another automatically-updating Podcast subscription of mine) features Bildschone Bucher (forgive the missing umlauts), a small bookshop in Berlin. I've always been fascinated by small bookstores because I never could grasp how they stayed in business. Not having researched the subject all that much, I would occasionally walk/drive by a hole-in-the-wall bookstore and think "Why on Earth would any person in his or her right mind search for and buy books HERE!? The selection is minimal, prices are bound to be higher than the big guys (or the library!), and most often the location isn't prime real estate either..." Well, silly me...
Bildschone Bucher's philosophy is simple... "Whilst everything (major booksellers) are aggregating and getting larger, we are intentionally staying smaller."
Ay, there's the rub. Yet another example of success by staying local, carving out a niche and serving it well.
Bildshone Bucher's decides on what makes its cut based on whether or not the staff "falls in love" with a particular book. By chance, they tend to fall in love primarily with photography books (about 80% of their inventory). Some of the images on their site are dazzling... check it out!
Also interesting to note that the founder had first started his bookselling venture online, with a concept and website called 25 Books. Only after its success did he decide to move the business to a brick and mortar operation as well...
(Updated 3/1/08)
And to FURTHER illustrate the point, I just read one of Guy's posts which I had not seen previously... "If You Want Customers to be Happy, Give Them Less Product Information."
It's a study that showed consumers who were given less information about chocolate and body lotion were able to optimistically use their imaginations to wishfully think and form positive impressions about the products. Whereas, those overloaded with details of the products' chemical composition, preservatives, etc. could not as easily overlook those details.
So, for some products, is consumer ignorance truly bliss?
Friday, February 29, 2008
"Less is More" mentality for small business
Friday, February 8, 2008
ANOTHER Fortune Cookie? and some BIG NEWS
So I thought I saved this fortune from yet ANOTHER overly insightful fortune cookie, thus I've waited a few days to make this post in hopes of it turning up. Alas, I'll have to proceed without the photo... believe at your own risk! And for those of you who are wondering - No, I don't eat Asian food that often. It was merely a coincidence -I promise!
Last week I enjoyed a much overdue meeting with my friend Anh Nguyen. He's the type of guy a very level head, and his personality weaves a fine balance between entrepreneurial go-get-em enthusiasm and hard-working conservatism. I worked with Anh to help him open a Quiznos franchise he started and has since sold off, while maintaining his full time career at Deloitte. Every once in a while we bounce new venture ideas off each other. Naturally I was eager to update him on our progress.
We met up for Chinese due to his recent conversion to vegetarianism... a difficult routine to get into for a full-fledged omnivore, but likely a rewarding one once you get over the hump.
Upon opening my fortune cookie on the ride home I remembered the fortune I'd received after lunch with Brandon (full story) and I was hopeful to keep my string of positive, relevant fortunes alive!! I got my wish. It read:
"You will receive some needed support this week. Accept it graciously."
Did we ever!!!!
I'm about ready to burst because I still in good conscience can't quite proclaim our good news YET... but it's like millimeters away and I can't wait for the huge sigh of relief (which will be followed by a tsunami of work...). The bottom line is we secured funding for our first acquisition and I definitely underestimated how difficult that process is. I knew it would be lots of work, but all this projecting and negotiating and justifying and amortizing and present valuing.... all gets a bit tiresome. And I'm confident this was an ~easy deal, in the world of "deals."
Now I have to make sure to "accept it graciously." Heck, I'll do whatever the fortune tells me to do if I keep up this streak!!!!
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Are Your Favorite Sites Global Faves Too?
Curious to see how your blog, favorite social network, media source, or company website stacks up in today's growing Internet space? These are two great resources to learn how much traffic the Internet's leading websites (and in fact almost all websites) are garnering.
www.alexa.com
The gold standard of online traffic data. Alexa developed a proprietary ranking system averaging Reach and monthly Page Views - this means a site's rank reflects 1) number of users and 2) number of pages viewed. Read the full explanation: (Alexa Traffic Ranking Definition).
It's got a great feature where you can plot the growth trend for multiple sites to see how they compare to each other. (Notice how I say "growth trend" as opposed to "trend" w/o hesitation. I'd be interested to see some hard data on how many websites/ebusinesses are truly in a "mature" stage of their life cycle. My guess - not many.)
http://www.quantcast.com/
Quantcast uses a much friendlier user interface (in my humble, non IT-background opinion). My favorite feature is the clearly stated Unique Visitor and Unique Page View count, which Alexa does not display in its rankings. Plus, Quantcast's Top 100 U.S. sites provides an interesting 1-line demographic snapshot of the featured sites (Top 100 U.S. sites).
You can also "Quantify" your site/blog by becoming a member, enabling you to view detailed reports of your site's traffic. Of the top 100 sites in the U.S., 7 of them have already done so. I can't vouch for the service b/c I don't use it - my guess is Google Analytics still takes the cake in this arena.
Plus, I just subscribed to Quantify's blog. 90% of the posts are featurettes highlighting a "new addition" to the Quantify family. It's a great way to find some great new sites you might be interested in (although StumbleUpon's definitely a more efficient method to serve this purpose). A couple of recent discoveries:
ICanHasCheezburger.com--- My gut is telling me this site makes (MUCH) more $$ than it should. If that's the case, I can only say one thing (equal to the sentiment I have towards country singers) - good for them.
HairFinder.com --- Ditto above. It's really just a facade site driving traffic to Amazon book sales.
And they get 1.3MM global uniques / month!!! Oh affiliate Marketing, how I love thee!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
A Pair of Thoughts on Global Improvement
The following are the type of thoughts you gotta get out of your head somewhere. Thank you blog o' mine for being the convenient ventee that you are.
ACCESSIBILITY
This passage is the result of months of built-up frustration from one of the business world's most well-loved functions - Sales and (the art that is) Cold Calling. Brrr... makes me shiver just thinking about it.... or maybe that's the blust'ry -20F windchill from our ever-lovely MN winter.
In truth, I like cold calling. I've "met" many successful, interesting, high-powered, energetic individuals over the phone. It's a great way to connect with people you'd otherwise have no chance to. And I've actually met some of them - a few of which have evolved into business partners, career counselors, personal advisors, friends, and of course - advertisers (I call more media buyer types in a day than anyone should have to. Ever. They are great people, I just know that a good percentage of the time, they'd rather have a heart-to-heart with a hole in the ground than listen to my 30-second pitch of how I can guarantee them an ROI while helping them grow their business.)
I think the world would be a better place if more intelligent and well-connected people were more accessible.
I can't over-emphasize how many times I have just straight-up been snubbed after a polite and professional series of voicemails/emails, without a single notion of recognizing my existence. And I promise Mr./Mrs. media buyer... you really DO want to hear what I have to say! I wouldn't be wasting my time calling you if I didn't think there was a sincere chance that we might actually mutually benefit from the conversation, right?
Is the problem that today's current channels (telephone, email, IM) don't suffice? Or is the problem that today's Marketers and business leaders don't understand the value of being accessible and connecting with and learning from the people around them?
I guess I need to invent a way for busy people to easily respond to those reaching out to them, and to motivate those busy folks to want to respond.
WOMEN
My addiction to absorbing a few "TED talks" each night before I go to bed continues. I subscribe to their video podcast, so as they release videos from their archive, iTunes conveniently downloads the new ones for me (although some aren't "new," as opposed to "newly released." Whatever - they're new to me!)
Last night I was flipping through the 117 "talks" I have downloaded (no I don't progress through them systematically - how fun is that?), and I came across the following description
"In one of the most beloved talks from TED2007, novelist Isabel Allende talks about writing, women, passion, feminism. She tells the stories of..." and my screen doesn't show any more. Now, the typical, yesterday Kevin Carlow would have read that preview and almost instantaneously continued his perusal. Reason - something about feminists, generally speaking, doesn't sit well with me. Perhaps it's my naivete, but the few that I know are passionate but stubborn and thus (in my eyes) close-minded about a non-feminist point of view. Passion is always refreshing, just listen to the other side too!!
So I watched it, wanting to believe I possessed this "open mind" I was preaching about in my head. What a fantastic idea - I recommend it highly (Isabel Allende: Tales of Passion). She's not an award-winning speaker and her ideas aren't earth-shakingly profound - but Isabel exudes truth, feminine strength, imagination, and not surprisingly, passion. Plus her sense of humor was refreshing and real.
More and more often I find single thoughts, passages, ideas, philosophies, or quotes which strike a particularly strong chord with me. She delivered one such line in mere passing, but it resonated fully. As she was preaching about the benefits of empowering women and unfortunate truths of the poorest and most backward societies that consistently oppress women, she delivered this thoughtful line:
"Men run the world, and look at the mess we have."
Now, I could go for an hour debating all angles of this point. My broad takeaway on this statement is - she's right. Women have been oppressed and disenfranchised since history can remember. Men hold an absurd majority of seats of power: political power, commercial power, military power, religious power, terrorist power, high-technology power, judicial power, law enforcement power ---- all utterly dominated by men. Of course an increasing population of women excel in virtually all categories above, but globally speaking, this number's still a tiny fraction.
If we had true gender equality, with female instincts, intelligences, and intuitions influencing half of the stuff that goes on, the world would be a HUGELY different place. And I might just go as far as Ms. Allende does and say... a better one.
A few blogs I like
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/
If you're into high-tech, Guy Kawasaki's blog opens tiny windows into the world from his evangelical viewpoint. Not as "juicy" as it could be (I bet he meets some really cool people in a given week), but very much worth subscribing to the feed nonetheless.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/
Seth Godin's blog is focused on... well I shouldn't really say it's FOCUSED on anything... He's a Marketing/Technology ideologist and author. His perspective is down to Earth, refreshing, and many of the things he says make me go "ya know, that's a damn good point!" He also points out some cool Internet resources every once in a while.
Another great way to find new blogs is using Google Reader's "Discover" function. It automatically recommends new RSS feeds based on the ones you subscribe to and how often you view them. Plus you can browse for any keyword that interests you (i.e. I typed in "change the world" and boom - Guy's blog won a seat in my Feed Reader).
(And I'm a little partial to this ViciGuy one too!!)
Sunday, January 27, 2008
It's good enough
It's not too often that I get horoscopes/fortunes/palm readings/etc. that actually resonate well. I'd have likely failed Astrology (as if you can major in it). But on a whim Miller and I hit up Eastar on Lake St, and this is what my fortune cookie had to say...
(Notice the missing apostrophe... maybe there's room to make a move in the fortune business? Our competitive advantage could be our award-winning translator!)
This wasn't one of those "damn that's a good idea" revelations. It was one of the "I-have-thought-about-this-and-this-is-a-sign-confirming-what-Iwas-thinking" kind of revelations. I vaguely remember preaching this mantra during Entre in Action last year. Now, my delivery might not have been top-notch, but apparently a Chinese wise-person agrees with the sentiment.
It's a timeless lesson for those trying to start, invent, create, redefine, and improve. And it's continuing to become oh-so-true as there is never less stuff to get done with each ensuing day.
Perfection is for fairy tales and middle school.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Attitude
What a rough week:
- Still re-couping from a stolen wallet episode on New Year's Eve (i.e. canceling credit cards, taking the MN driver's test to get a MN ID, getting a new U Card, buying a new wallet!)
- Painstakingly going through the process of having my parked car hit and damaged passed a driveable limit. Not only a visit downtown to get the accident reports (not a 5-minute errand) and dealing with auto body shop / insurance company, but... I HAVE NO CAR!!
- Setbacks with prospective advertisers dropping out for the '08 edition of the Advsior
- Found out I'd been paying $1.00 into my apartment complex's dryer, only to find out from a roommate that it if you put a quarter in the farthest right slot, it only costs $0.25!
- And to top it all off, Brett and the boys couldn't pull it together in OT last night in Lambeau. Particularly sad (but perhaps fitting) that Favre's last NFL throw was a pick.
BIG PICTURE
You have a choice. You can let adversity control you by focusing your attitude on negativity. OR, you can choose to put all those negative things into what I like to call "my small stuff bucket," realizing that whatever it is that's getting me down probably won't be getting me down in a week or two and that I have bigger things to worry about than a little fender bender or not being able to close a few sponsors for our publication.
Your energy can be put to better use than sweating the small stuff, and all it takes is treating yourself to bit of hard-nosed honesty that whatever it is probably isn't THAT big of a deal.
How much small stuff are you sweating?
Sunday, January 13, 2008
The future of FREE
Chris Anderson seems wicked smart- his latest resume bullet is Editor of Wired Magazine. Check out a video of him speaking on the "economy of free." I pretty much agree with every damn word that comes out of his mouth.
I got to thinking about his theory and wondering how I can bring it to other industries (i.e. where else, aside from the production of transistors, are the costs of producing something approaching zero?)
This is NOT the billion dollar answer, but I couldn't help myself...
If I owned a grocery store near a college campus, I would give away Ramen noodles for free. Maybe limit the amount to 2 or 4 per customer per visit, and I know production of Ramen noodles doesn't really fit his economic theory/observation, but that's beside the point.
I know the golden rule is location location location, but near campus, a very close second to the golden rule is FREE, and an equally close third is Ramen noodles... What college student WOULDN'T buy groceries at "U-Ramen Supermarket"?!?!?
What your middle school basketball coach never knew he was teaching you...
Or maybe he did, in which case he's a genius!!
I recently joined the neighborhood YWCA. Which, as many people do NOT know, is a virtually equal counterpart to the more commonly known YMCA. Rest assured, after careful pre-enrollment and questioning (and now after a week's worth of visiting), it is truly a co-ed establishment. And I have no problem supporting the cause of "eliminating racism, empowering women" while I shave off those flabby Christmas calories.
Last Thursday I had the basketball court entirely to myself. The end of my routine entails a set of free throws, as anyone who's ever played organized basketball at any level has been coached to do. Remembering what I'd learned way back when I was good enough to make the "White" (i.e. "second-string") squad my Freshman year of high school --- positioning your feet, setting your legs, getting a good grip on the ball, visualize the shot, follow-through, etc.
10 shots later I'd made 8/10. 30 shots after that I was 38/40. 30 in a ROW!!!! At the time I was thrilled... not AS thrilled as if my roommate (a high school varsity starter and notoriously better at basketball than I) had been there to witness, but excited to have achieved the feat nonetheless. Not to mention I had to leave the free throw line every time to get the rebound, walk back to the line, recollect myself, and deliver the next shot.
How did I, after months of basketball hibernation, manage this? Latent muscle memory? Doubtful. Luck? Perhaps. But perhaps a subtle lesson is there after all...
MENTAL TOUGHNESS
It broke down into three key components, which I think are important for myself, other entrepreneurs, and anyone dedicated to anything.
1. Rhythm
The key here is not what your rhythm is or what you do when you're in a rhythm... it's getting into a rhythm in the first place!! Because I'd been warming up and shooting around prior to my time on the free throw line, my muscles were tuning into making a higher percentage of shots. I was focusing special attention to keeping my elbow cocked at the same degree, bending my legs the same amount, following through the same way, and so on. Through repetition it became second nature.
In the same way, when you focus on anything - personal skills, an organizational issue, defects in a new prototype - if you pay attention to correcting the right details, and you PRACTICE, those corrections become second nature and you automatically prevent the same mistake from surfacing.
Form good habits, become their slave.
2. Forward Focus
When things started going well at 10 in a row, 11 in a row, 12 in a row... it was difficult to keep my cool. Pressure was mounting as I knew with each additional shot, the odds of this streak were dwindling, and yet, with each new make I was that much more excited to keep the streak alive!! But this very excitement would have been the end of my success, had I been focusing on my PAST SUCCESS and not at the task AHEAD.
You can see where I'm going here. It was a good mental exercise to have to tell myself to put the streak out of my mind and focus on repeating the same formula that had produced the streak in the first place. Successful ideas/products/systems are meant to celebrated not with parties and red ribbon and letting them sit as a check-mark on someone's timeline, but with careful attention to replicating and pulling the success into the future.
3. Faith
A bit on the softer side, but it's undeniably there. Had an inch of doubt crept into my mind, that would have been one inch to the right and I'm tossin up a brick clanging off the rim.
Once you've gotten into a rhythm, think you've figured out a successful formula, and remained focus on replicating that success... you must be prepared to cast off all remaining doubt, breathe deeply, and take the plunge (or in this case, the free throw).
"Remembering you're going to die is the best way to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose." --- Steve Jobs
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
A potential partner, or two
You know, I was just going to Share this story in my Links feed, but I'm too excited. Maybe I'm too easily swooned by certain people/products/companies/sites that seem to speak my language; alas, I can't resist a short spell of ogling over up-and-comer's, young entrepreneurs, and clever writing.
Ben Casnocha. Just discovered his blog, book, and bio from an excellent post from user Prakblr on the message board of a Shelfari group I started on Entrepreneurship. (Shelfari is a social networking site - you create your virtual "book shelf" and are given a host of sharing and networking features to display your shelf and view others' shelves. My group has grown to 108 members, and I've done next to nil to promote it (i.e. letting Shelfari do the heavy lifting for me). Makes me optimistic about the future of www.thealumniadvisor.com and other networking site ideas we have on the backburner). I digress.
After 20 min of reading, Ben seems to have a definitive edge, carving out a nice niche in the "young entrepreneur success" department. He will have to step up his game after graduating from college to maintain his inertia. With less than half an hour of reading, I feel pretty confident he will do just that.
His book: My Start-Up Life. Yes, I am jealous... jealous that I did not write this book before he did.
This is the post that mandated the formal entry into my blog - What We'd Wish We'd Known In College.
He's merely taking excerpts from n+1's What We Should Have Known pub, but seeing the excerpts he chose seems like a tell-tale sign to me that we're vibrating close to the same frequency.
RSS Button Maker
I just found this great website which enabled me to add the RSS buttons you see in my "Subscribe!!" Tab. Check it out...
Top Rank Blog - RSS button maker
Google Ad Revolution
What would happen if you started a movement where every time every person in the movement saw a Google AdSense ad - they clicked it?
Would some crazy revolution happen where site owners (and Google) would get insanely rich? Would advertisers actually get an ROI on their skyrocketed ad expenses?
Monday, January 7, 2008
The Future of Content
I just found myself uploading 2007 Alumni Advisor content to a couple of free online article hubs I found on Google.
www.articledashboard.com
www.freeforallarticles.com
My primary incentive here (aside from the intrinsic philanthropic knowledge-spreading motivator which of course is always present) is simply to drive a couple of extra hits to www.thealumniadvisor.com and increase awareness of the publication/website. Leaving these articles free to be used and re-used for any and all purposes like VIVA paper towels and my gym bag from high school.
Nothing directly monetary, whatsoever.
We have seen lately a (what I believe might be a hint at a HUGE) trend towards donation-driven content (see Radiohead's In Rainbows post-success interview with Wired or the Steal This Film project and it's latest Part II release). TorrentSpy just released information saying that the average donation given to see Steal This Film... $15!!! (source: Mashable.com)
This screams that quality, niche content - when reaching the right audience, is worth a premium to its consumers. Or at least it's worth SOMETHING!
+ FUTURE OF CONTENT =
I just started cooking up a new idea about two hours ago to help many other content providers out there (bloggers, indie film makers, upcoming bands, aspiring authors) to achieve financial success by following their passions and getting paid for it - by you, me, and anyone else that wants to help that individual keep offering their content to the world. I'll keep you posted.
What other ways are there to help content providers make money that I haven't heard of yet?
Sunday, January 6, 2008
A New Year
Well... looking back at 2007 I see, among many other things, that I underestimated how difficult it is for a budding entrepreneur to maintain a blog. Let an improvement in this regard be the first of many '08 resolutions to which I will adhere.
Today was an exciting day. Despite some unlucky events of late (not one but TWO fender benders on my PARKED car and a visit from a klepto neighbor on New Year's Eve...), I can't help but feel a bit lucky today. After only a few brief weeks of good-natured negotiations, we have officially agreed on the terms of our first acquisition. I'll keep it anonymous for now until we close on the deal (on the off-chance that someone actually reads this).
It feels good to have successfully avoided heavy use of legal counsel. We may regret that decision down the road, but my instinct tells me the notion of keeping business matters between business people is generally a good idea. Time will tell.
2 more weeks to close on Alumni Advisor sales. We've got a ways to go before break-even (yikes!). But I can't remember too many times in my life where I wasn't cutting it close for something important, and things have pretty much worked themselves out.
Trip to the DMV tomorrow to get a new driver's license. (A Minnesota DL... I thought the license plates were bad enough! Although I learned today that legally after 60 days of living in MN it's against the law to not have a MN DL, so I guess it's about time, eh?)
My latest addictions include: video podcasts (particularly TED conference videos), Orange Box, His Dark Materials trilogy, and business plan revisions. I can smell playoff football on the horizon. And I can see a Favre/Brady Super Bowl gun-slinger duel in the distance. And a new membership to the neighborhood Y will mean a welcome addition to the daily routine. Form good habits, become their slave.
Nick meets with a banker from Bremer tomorrow to discuss bplans and projections for '09 and beyond. Fun stuff!
