One of the biggest branding/marketing failures I have seen in my career was due to decisions made in a vacuum. The founders were all fired up about the new strategy, but they failed to market it to the staff. They were the only people in the company who were involved in the process. Worse yet, since founders never really sold the service, they had no idea how customers perceived the brand. Staff refused to use new marketing materials and new terminology. It took a while, but founders had to go back to the drawing board after dumping all that money. Unfortunately, money was not the only resource wasted. Morale took a huge hit too.
Best practices in lean business operations, technology, and other areas pertinent to success of startups, small, and mid-market businesses.
Category Archives: Leadership
If your staff does not get it, neither will the customer!
Beware of the lemmings!
I was reading “Failure as an event” post on Seth Godin’s blog. After self-deprecating himself talking about 20+ large entrepreneurial failures he was part of, Seth shared some of the lessons he has learned. The biggest one that caught my eye was: “Being the dumbest partner in a room of smart people is exactly where [...]
What can startups learn from MythBusters
My late father used to say that great idea is the one that many people come up with independently.
So as I was watching MythBusters on the Discover Channel (my favorite show), reading David Armano’s blog post about unconventional marketing, and listening to Stephen Shapiro (innovation consultant) talk at our Revolve Nation entrepreneur networking event, I realized something that I have been practicing for a long time. Stephen Shapiro calls it “failing cheaply”.
If you are in a startup and have a title, you are not doing enough work…
Last November I was interviewing with a very stealthy (for a very good reason) startup in Boston. During my conversation with a co-founder Ellen (she is very stealthy too, so I will skip last name), I asked her what her title was. Her answer was something that has stuck with me to this day. She said: “if you are in a startup and have a title, you are not doing enough“!
Subscribe
About THE FOUNDER
Apolinaras is a business operations leader with 12-year track record of building scalable and capital-efficient operations for technology and professional services companies.Read More About Us ยป