I was watching an NFL pregame last month. It was Green Bay vs Minisota. Brett Farve vs the team that didn’t think he could play.
What was interesting was the announcers. Each one of the hall of fame athletes and coaches went off script to single out a specific coach, by name, that didn’t believe in him.
Here they were all wearing Super Bowl Rings, wildly successful and on national TV.
And they wanted to let you know that one guy that didn’t believe in them. They were passionate about it. “This guy said I could never play in the NFL *points to Super Bowl Champion Ring* yeah, I remember that.”
There is a level of intellectual honesty you have to have with startups. People are going to say no to you a lot. It isn’t your job to push through every rejection, it is your job to know which ones to be bummed about.
Today I Pick was rejected by the Open Angel Forum. I really like what they are doing and would have loved to present, but I’m not 100% sure on raising money right now, which is what the forum is really for. If you are not 100% sure you are raising money, you really are 0%. They saw this. Smart. If I got in I would be taking a spot away from someone with a lead investor. Part of me wants to be a pit bull about these things, part of me understands why. I’m excited to watch the OAF grow, would love to help develop a program for those that don’t get in.
The SXSW Accelerator, of which I was critical of last year, sent a rejection to Pick today. I’m pretty bummed about this, partially in the way it was done (100% form letter, no feedback, and I was charged to submit), but in what I think Pick is bringing is perfect for the SXSW crowd. I really want to support this event (startups need more celebration at SXSW) and was trying to be the better change. Still planning on launching at SXSW.
There is that chip on the shoulder that someone gets. Bottled up rage. I felt this way at Mile 25 of the NYC Marathon, and the last mile of the Half Ironman. You could have hit me with a truck and I would have crawled to the finish line.
One of my heroes is the CU Cross Country program (coaches and athletes). Long time coach Mark Wetmore has a great attitude about not talking about what you are going to do, but showing them the soles of your feet. There is a quite humble pride in that.
I think the biggest area of growth in the next two years is going to be brandjacking.
For instance I can’t make a call while driving to Denver on AT&T without it being dropped. Seven times is the fewest I can do. AT&T is horrible, and no amount of brainwashing commercials can make them suck less. What can make them suck less is their stock price going down (or customers flat leaving) because of customer dissatisfaction.
What happens when Apple, kings of marketing products, get brought down by brandjacking and pop culture?
Saturday Night Live announced the iPad as “apple released a thing that does stuff that their other things already do.”
As cool as we think this product is going to be, there is a underlying sense that if you use it, you will be lame.
We can call this the Segway Problem. You can’t look cool and use a Segway, or a Zune for that matter (sorry).
This comes to an underlying theme of this blog, don’t be lame. How does a product become lame? By not listening to customers, abusing their power, being overpriced, being closed to innovation or repeating past mistakes.
Call that the Apple 2010 mantra. The iPad didn’t listen to their customers, is abusing their power (flash anyone?), overpriced (not by much, but every app added they will get a 30% cut of), a closed operating system and sticking with AT&T (holy fail of all fails).
With the iPad Apple has started the process of being unbeatable brand leader to lame.
I see smaller groups being highly effective at brandjacking companies. Danny’s example above is a very small example.
Remember the Chevy ad campaign from a few years ago that the community went a little wild with brandjacking? The site is down, but SFWeekly caught a great clip:
When you think of Chevy and “I still live with my parents” you are far less likely to buy a Chevy.
With high unemployment and brands marketing to wealth and status, it really is inevitable.
My friend Eric told be about crossfit a few years ago, and I thought, that sounds like a workout cult of ultra fit crazies. The workouts looked tough in an ‘no shit humans can’t do that’ type of way.
Last month my friend Tara tweeted at Nicole Gibson of CrossFit Roots here in Boulder that she was really sore. Like woke up in the night sore. I thought that sounded pretty terrible.
Wait, Tara is doing crossfit? Tara, the ‘Napa Valley of Beer‘ Ignite speaker is doing these insane workouts?
My name is Andrew Hyde, and I'm a startup enthusiast. Thanks for checking out the site. This is my personal site where I share my thoughts about startups, communities, coffee, and my residence in Boulder, Colorado. The great company that I work for is TechStars, which is most certainly the finest startup accelerator in the land. I have founded 4 companies, including Startup Weekend and VCwear. Find me online here:
