Loving this Book- Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition
A MUST read.
Swoopes There It Is!
How to have a happy family and successful business without loosing your mind and sense of humor!
What I'm Watching- Simon Sinek's Ted Talk
Why I Moved My Humble Start-up From Tokyo
My sweet and exciting love affair with Tokyo has finally come to an end. It was an awesome city. I had a great time. But it's over.
Early summer, I sat down with a trusted and respected person in the Tokyo start-up scene who pretty much advised me to get the hell out of Tokyo, if I was serious about my growing my business.
I followed his advice and within a month, we'd packed it all up, said sayonara, boarded a plane and settled into our new home in the USA.
So here I am, back in the land of the free :). We've chosen a charming little beach town on the Southern California coast where surf, yoga, coffee, sun, and 72 degree weather is in abundance throughout the year. It's not Silicon Valley, it's not Tokyo, and it's precisely where our family wants to be. Plus, it's a place that gives my business a much better chance for success.
Here's why I moved my start-up from Tokyo.
I've Noticed a Major Flaw with Simple 'Viral' Launching Soon Pages
I live in the land of long line lovers (I love alliteration). If something is new, cool, and launching for the first time in Tokyo, you'd better believe there's going to be a two to three hour long wait to get in there.
At first I thought it was a bit bizarre (Americans only stand in long lines at Disney World), until a few years ago, Krispy Kreme entered Tokyo and I found myself wanting a donut so bad that I actually contemplated standing in the longest line I've ever seen in my life! I'm serious. Don't believe me? I took photos...
I Need Help With Start-up Metrics. Any Suggestions or Tips?
I won't launch a thing until I get this metrics tracking system worked out and in place. So this week, I am focusing all of my time and energy on creating a simple and thorough metrics tracking system, something so simple and good that I can easily look at what's going on and know without a doubt what's happened and what needs to be done.
I'm not a math whiz. I'm not a programmer. I'm a sales and marketing girl and former headhunter- so I understand the importance of tracking metrics. I just don't know how to create a simple system for a tech start-up. It's like a foreign language to me. Thus, a new challenge I MUST master.
How to Get Things Done as a Start-up Mom, 6 Ways to Better Productivity.
Why does this matter? Well, my productivity with Hitch'd has gone through the roof! The analogy that instantly came to mind was an image of the old childhood video game, RC Pro AM. (Ha!) I have entered a productivity speed inducer. Please refer to the little red truck visual above. See the arrows? In this particular game, when you drive over the arrows, you're truck is given a speed boost to help you move ahead of the others.
It feels so good that I wanted to share with you what's worked and helped to accelerate my productivity. Here are six ways to improve your productivity.
8 Ways Start-ups Are Like Babies
Two weeks ago, my seven month-old was teething, had the worst diaper rash I'd ever seen in my life, and had a fever plus a cold. It was a weekend I will never ever forget. Ever.
Sometimes being a mommy makes being a start-up founder seem like a breeze... Of course, that's until you peep your competitor's latest activity. Nothing like a good old punch in the gut every now and then to give you perspective.
When you're building a business and being a mommy, you absolutely must have a sense of humor! So I give you, 8 Ways Start-ups Are Like Babies. This is supposed to be funny, so try not to take it too seriously and feel free to add your own in the comments.
What I'm Reading, 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive.
via amazon.com
I started reading this book two weeks ago and I couldn't put it down. It's packed with tons of information that can be applied to business. After every chapter, I'm writing down ideas on how I can apply this to my start-up. Highly recommended!
What You Should Know About Having a Baby and Founding a Start-up
Why I Don't Like Your Brand on Facebook via BrianSolis.com
Why I Don’t Like Your Brand on Facebook
Guest post by Andrew Blakeley. Follow him on Twitter (for exclusive deals and offers!)
I recently undertook a simple Facebook experiment, inspired by a brief Monday morning rant from my boss: “This morning my yoghurt told me to find it on Facebook. It didn’t tell me why, it just told me to find it. Why on Earth would I want to find a yoghurt on Facebook? It’s a yoghurt!”
He was right, of course. As social networks slowly become the default online presence for brands to drive their consumers to, adverts, marketing and packaging has started telling us where to go. However, it hasn’t yet started telling us why to go there.
For my experiment – “Find Us On Facebook” – I vowed to Like every brand that asked me to for one week. I would then blog and analyse the various offerings of each brand, in particular how they were attempting to drive people from the offline world to the online, social, world. Here are the results:
As a marketer, I found the results very disappointing. For an industry the focuses endlessly on providing consumers with “benefits” and “reasons to believe” here was a lot of marketing asking people to take an action, without telling them what they stood to gain from it. In 2011 it’s more or less a given that your brand can be found on Facebook, and consumers know that. What they don’t know is why they should bother.
What consumers want from brands in social media is a topic that has been widely written about already, and is fairly well understood by marketers. Research from advertising agency DDB Paris found that amongst the top reasons for Liking a brand were: “to take advantage of promotional benefits”,” to be informed of new products offered by the brand”,” to access exclusive information” and “to give my opinion about the brand”. Four very clear reasons to bother, which could easily be affixed or suffixed onto any “Find us on Facebook” message for greater impact.
Another key finding was the number of brand Liking requests coming from email marketing. These are brands that I had chosen to receive email marketing from directly into my inbox, and here they were asking to appear in my Facebook newsfeed too. They weren’t, however, telling me why I should open myself up to them in another channel.
Only 1 of the 16 brands provided an incentive to make the leap from email to social media. I literally had no reason to bother with the other brands, as I was already receiving their deals and offers, and they weren’t giving me another reason. Some brands have found interesting ways to incentivise people to make the jump:
via briansolis.com
I thought this was a very interesting read!
