Archive for 'Business Models'
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 02 Jul 2010, 6:07 PM - View Comments
You would have heard the following statements many times.
- Tools are not everything. What you do with tools is more important.
- Tools are a means to an end. They are not the end.
A writer has to write and it does not matter what tools he uses to write. Well, most of the time. If you are writing a novel, then using a tool like Scrivener would make a world of difference. Last November, I participated in the NaNoWriMo event and wrote the first draft of my novel in 19 days. Of course, it took months to refine it after that. But the point is – Scrivener was a God-send at that point in time. It made me focus on my few hours of writing at night and removed all the distractions by fading them away.
In summary, it is the combination of the “right” talent capitalizing on the “right” talent that will make a big difference.
That brings me to the point of this blog post after a brief background:
It was more than 13 months ago, that I first met Ram Dutt and Jason Dirks, co-founders of Meylah. They had a vision that was about providing tools and resources to a community that BADLY needs them (the community of creative professionals).
The idea instantly appealed to me – mostly because I have so many creative people in my network who are not web-savvy. They LOVE their craft and they mostly “hate” working outside of it – like talking about it, promoting it, marketing and selling it.
Scott Belsky says it brilliantly in his just released book “Making Ideas Happen” (a must-read even for people outside the creative world) – most creative people struggle because they stop at the idea stage or limit their work to their craft. They do what they LOVE and not what is REQUIRED to make what they LOVE flourish.
I didn’t have to go far for a use-case. My brother Prasad in India is an artist and he loves his craft. But he had never been able to get share, sell and teach his craft easily before.
Meylah’s vision of providing the “right tools” for an audience that was hungry was hence compelling. The tools include – providing an ability to share (a simple blog), an ability to sell (a store), an ability to teach (a lightweight learning management system) and an ability to connect (social media integration).
Long story short, Meylah has now released their Alpha and are accepting invites. There are several early alpha invitees who have already created their Meylah sites. A few examples are below:
1. http://www.meylah.com/chirag – A 9-year old artist showcasing his artwork
2. http://www.meylah.com/courtneyrian – A jewelry designer selling her work
3. http://www.meylah.com/prasad – My brother Prasad featuring his paintings
All of the above people created their websites without much help or having to be competent on the use of the web.
Like I said before, tools are not everything – but for “the right talent,” “the right tools” can simply give the edge that you need.
Quick request: If you are a creative professional, please check out http://www.meylah.com. If you are not one, but you know of a creative professional, please forward this blog post to them.
Thanks and have a great weekend.
Posted under Business Models, Compelling Offers, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 07 Jun 2010, 4:56 PM - View Comments
There is an old saying – “don’t put a square peg in a round hole” and it’s obvious why it is true – the square peg does not fit in a round hole!!!!
Of course, nobody will try to use a square peg in a round hole. Not literally. Even if they do, they will fix that very quickly as there is an instant visual feedback.
But businesses are different. There is no feedback for most of the things that don’t work. It becomes part of statistics.
When they do a campaign and get a 5% success rate, they don’t look at it as a 95% failure rate. They just compare it to the industry average (which may be 10%) and think that they are half way there.
Some things that are obvious when they are out of sync and some things are not.
Let’s take a few obvious ones:
1. Sending discount coupons for steak to a vegetarian.
2. Sending information on how to deal with menopause to men.
3. Sending weight loss information to skinny fellows.
4. Sending hair care information to bald people.
5. Sending information about wigs to people who are not bald.
The not-so-obvious ones are tricky.
1. Selling a home to someone who can’t afford it.
2. Adding someone to your mailing list just because they gave you their card.
3. Selling insurance coverage for things that are already covered
I can go on but best is to explain with an example. I am using a recent promotion from Redbox to make a point. Please note that I like Redbox service and I use this only an example of an “out of sync” promotion.
First, the email subject line.
It says “Get your June Freebie” – which is questionable as there is no “real” Freebie in there. But we will give them the benefit of doubt. Zero marks for creative headlines though as people won’t open promotion emails once they realize that it’s a bait-and-switch game.
Now, let us look at the promotion itself.
The promotion says:
Rent two movies at the same time from any redbox kiosk and get a promo code for free night’s rental.
Some background information before the analysis – Redbox simple value proposition is that you can rent a movie for a night for a buck. So if you are sure of watching a movie that night, why spend five bucks at blockbuster?
Now let us look at the promotion in a bit more detail. For someone to take advantage of the promotion, they have to rent two movies on the same day – meaning they have to watch two movies on the same day. If they keep a movie for the next day, they pay an extra dollar for that movie and the free rental does not make sense anymore (as you have paid an extra dollar for an earlier movie)
So the promotion really works for people that will match the following criteria
* people who love movies
* people who love watching movies on DVD
* people who are NOT subscribers of Netflix or some other service
* people who are cost conscious
* people who are willing to watch two movies in a day to save a dollar
The sad part is that there will be some people ( a small percentage, though ) who will fit the bill and will use the promotion – creating a “perceived win” for the marketing department who created that promotion. This, unfortunately, will lead to more “out of sync” promotions.
And the point is???
Simply to urge you to revisit your own offers and see if they are “in sync.” Otherwise, it will be worth your time to review them again.
PS: Would love to help Redbox but after this blog post I doubt they will contact me 
Posted under Business Models.
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 11 May 2010, 6:53 PM - View Comments
Airlines love frequent flyer miles.
Why?
If they convince that the travelers win with frequent flyer miles, they win. Most travelers won’t keep track of them and you can always change the rules at whim to make miles worthless at some point in time.
So, the idea is to keep telling a story that seems super compelling about what someone can do with their airline miles.
Here are some stories in pictures about American Airlines AAdvantage miles.
#1: Where can your miles take you?
#2 You just can’t download this
#3: 250 cities. 40 countries.
If none of the above touched you, how about using a charity angle?
#4: Miles closer to a cure
Now, here is a tweet from Mark Hurst about the complexity of actually redeeming those miles
The picture mentioned in Mark’s tweet is below
Note to American Airlines: If you are going to tell a compelling story, make it a point to tell that story all the way. Not just in making the promise – but also in fulfilling it.
PS: A few months ago, more than 60,000 miles in my AAdvantage account disappeared for some crazy reason. I went through hoops to get them back and did not succeed. Asking around, I found that I am not alone.
Posted under Business Models.
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 23 Apr 2010, 10:47 AM - View Comments
Yesterday was the launch of our pet project 99Tribes. 99Tribes is a discovery engine for people on Twitter.
Some background first.
Search vs Discovery
There is a big debate about what’s the big deal about discovery when we have search engines that do the job.Here is a quick explanation. We always search within the circle of of our awareness. If we are not aware of something, it’s hard to type those in the search boxes. Try it – try to search for something that you are not aware of. If it feels odd, it is!
However, there may be “gems” present outside of our circle of awareness but within the “circle of possibility” – that’s the discovery zone. That’s where 99Tribes thrives – finding people that you might not have found otherwise. And, if these people share multiple interests with you, then we have the making of the ultimate tribe on Twitter.
Making of an ultimate tribe
We bond with people that share our interests. A club or an association is formed just by matching one interest that people share. A movie club may bring people together that share movies as their passion. A book club may bring together people that love books. A bicycling club may bring together people that like to go cycling. However, some people that love movies may also love to read and also go on cycling. It’s hard to create a movie-book-bicycling club in a town.
But on Twitter, you can create a tribe however you want – in fact, you can do that without even asking people to join. How? If you can find people that match all these interests, you can follow them and then start a conversation. Until they follow back, it will be sort of one-sided but soon people will follow back and you then create an ultimate tribe.
The more matches you have with your interests, the stronger the bond.
Join in:
At the outset, 99Tribes looks like “another” twitter people directory. There are many out there and we really don’t need another one.
The easiest way to see the difference is to experience it.
You can start by typing whatever you are interested in – in the search box.
The search results page will display a set of users that match that interest. Until this time, the system behaves like any other search engine. Right on that search results page, you will notice that there are set of dynamic filters that show up on the left column. Dynamic is the keyword here. These keywords are built per search – and they are arranged in descending order of volume. Meaning the first filter on the column will have more matches than the filter down below.
You can click on one of the filters and drill down deeper to find people that match multiple interests. Every time, you click on a filter, the filter list gets updated to reflect the new search results. You can keep drilling down deeper until you run out of all filters.
You can experience the power of “discovery” with every search with the dynamic filters.
99Tribes is brought to you by ActiveGarage and powered by Rawsugar (some of you might remember the name) that has three patents on discovery. We are excited about it and hope you will be excited too.
Go ahead and please try us out and better yet, if you are on Twitter add yourself and be “discoverable.”
Have a great day.
Posted under Business Models, entrepreneurship.
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 18 Apr 2010, 8:01 AM - View Comments
How can you admit guilt AND get a brownie point for it?
You can learn that from Starbucks.
This was are two message that are on the outside of a brown bag there.
On the front:
Real Food. Simply Delicious.
We’ve got good news. We removed the artificial trans fats, artificial flavors, artificial dyes and high-fructose corn syrup. Now your food not only tastes better, it is better. We hope you enjoy the difference.
On the back:
Hi,
We are making a change. Using simpler recipes and taking out artificial ingredients. So your food not only tastes better, it is better. It’s a start. But we think it’s a good one. Hope you do too. Enjoy.
Your friends at Starbucks.
p.s. More to come.
Read between the lines and you will notice that this change was long overdue. Starbucks is admitting that they were using artificial trans fats, artificial flavors, artificial dyes and high-fructose corn syrup. And, they knew that they were doing it wrong.
Thank God they are fixing it.
Read the message again and you will notice that it is crafted to make you feel that they are walking the extra mile.
Hats off to their marketing team.
Posted under Business Models, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Wed 14 Apr 2010, 10:10 AM - View Comments
The sad part about a flaw is that it is visibly invisible – meaning you should have seen it but you don’t. In other words, a flaw typically does not hide itself from you. It’s just that you don’t see it.
Let me take an example.
This was a recent advertisement from Westin.
If you stay twice at a Westin Hotel, you will receive a $100 Amazon gift certificate.
Note: The advertisement didn’t say if you stay two nights.
Chances are that there will be many requests for the $100 Amazon gift certificates making it look like the campaign was successful.
What the redemptions won’t say is:
- How many of those people would have stayed at Westin twice even when they didn’t see this offer (regulars at Westin)
- How many of those really changed their mind because of this offer (real converts)
- How many of these would have stayed only once at Westin but decided to stay twice because of this offer (partial converts)
An offer like this is asking for a lot from “real converts” – those that are loyal to another brand but will switch because of a $100 Amazon certificate. But those won’t have the time to come and give you the feedback. So in other words, you don’t know how in what ways this offer failed.
Since there will be redemptions of the $100 certificate there is a “perceived win” and that is the invisible flaw.
Unfortunately this happens all the time – in marketing and in other parts of life.
Something to think about…
Posted under Business Models, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sat 10 Apr 2010, 12:52 PM - View Comments
I was presenting on the topic of “The Power of Storytelling” to the NIT Alumni group last week. I had a few dozen slides of companies telling powerful stories. During the break, one of the participants mentioned about the Horlicks story. [To set the context, over 2 billion cups of Horlicks are drunk every year.]
Rather than writing a long post, here are the two advertisements (one for India and one for UK) – lifted directly from their respective websites.
(Story: Horlicks is the only health drink, clinically proven in India, to make kids taller, stronger and sharper)
(Story: Sleep well, eat well)
Summary: We don’t know whether Horlicks is selling two different sets of products but if not, it is really an interesting story
Posted under Business Models.
By Rajesh Setty on Wed 31 Mar 2010, 6:29 PM - View Comments
We’re running a free Webinar with NY Times Best Selling Author Marshall Goldsmith to talk about his new book #MOJOtweet.
What: FREE Webinar
Who: NY Times Best Selling Author Marshall Goldsmith
When: April 1, 2010 11amPT/2pmET
Where: Call in 218-339-4300 Participant code: 715975#
Marshall Goldsmith, author of several NY Times bestselling books will be giving a free webinar on April 1, 2010 from 11amPT/2pmET to share tips from one of his latest books, ‘#MOJOtweet: 140 Bite Sized Ideas on How to Get and Keep Your Mojo’.
During this webinar, Goldsmith will highlight the essential parts for building Mojo–identity, achievement, reputation, and acceptance–and will help attendees realize the five qualities necessary to do an activity well–motivation, knowledge, ability, confidence, and authenticity.
To join in the fun, just call 218-339-4300 Participant code: 715975#.
If wish to get great insights, resources and tools from one of America’s top predominate coaches, you won’t want to miss out on this free webinar.
The #MOJOtweet paperback is listed at $19.95, the eBook is $14.95. To encourage the awareness, we are offering his book in a number of formats at significant discounts.
- $9.99 special on the paperback Discounted Paperback: Click here
- $1.99 special on the eBook. Discounted both: Click here
- $0.99 special on the Kindle version: Click here
- $0.00 special on the iPhone app for #MOJOtweet and 4 other THINKaha books. Search for and download the THINKaha app.
—
Interested in exploring writing your own book?
Contact THINKaha if you have any questions or would like to be considered for writing a book in this series. Send an e-mail to info@thinkaha.com and ask for the six questions to get started. If you need help getting the book completed, we have help for that too.
Call 408-257-3000 or e-mail.
Posted under Announcement, Business Models.
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 16 Feb 2010, 12:01 AM - View Comments
You can check the time on your cell phone. Or you could buy a reasonably good watch for less than $100.
So, why would anyone buy a watch that is north of $2500.
Obviously not just to check the time.
So, it must be the stories that the watch makers tell about why you need to buy them.
Here are some samples (photos from the world’s largest mall in Dubai)
First, let us take Omega.
You may want to buy it because it is George Clooney’s choice.
That doesn’t cut it? OK this should do it. Omega is also Zhang Ziyi’s choice
Second, Jaeger-LeCoultre
Jaeger-LaCoultre thinks you might have never really worn a real watch (that is unless you own a Jaeger-LaCoutre)
Third, Tag Heuer
They have been making watches since 1860 and have a rich history. Plus, you might want a watch that is accurate to a 1/100 of a second.
Fourth and final, Patek Phillippe
You have to look at them because it is multi-generational story. According to them, you never really “own” a watch. You just take care of them for the next generation.
Convinced yet?
Posted under Business Models, Compelling Offers.
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 07 Feb 2010, 12:01 AM - View Comments
The other day, I was at the Campbell post office standing in the line waiting for my turn. It was a long line so (as usual) I was busy browsing a book. The person in front of me brought me out of my dream when he stepped out asking me to hold his place. I nodded and continued reading.
I couldn’t help notice what the person did.
There was a box to drop off a business card to win a prize at the end of the month. The person dropped off his business card and walked back. I looked at the box again. There were probably 200 other business cards in the box.
Not fully believing what I just saw, I struck a conversation with the person in front.
I asked, “So, what exactly is the prize they are promising?”
He said, “No clue on that one.”
I asked, “But you put in your business card in there…”
He said, “Yeah, what’s there to lose. There are hundreds of them who have already put in their business card. They can’t be wrong.”
We both smiled and ended the conversation there.
I couldn’t help thinking about what happened.
1. There is something “free” that is promised. Don’t know what that is.
2. Around 200 other people thought it was good to get that “free” thing and opted in to the offer
3. A new person thought that if 200 other people are not wrong, he can’t be wrong.
4. It takes only a second (and a business card) to opt-in to the offer
5. The new person takes the bait and opts in to the offer.
Just a simple example that the combination of “Free,” “Social Proof” and “Now” is a killer combination.
Have a great day.
Other articles on the concept of “Free”:
1. Jan 3, 2010: The case for “Free” (again)
2. Jan 12, 2010: The “Free” Dilemma – Bits vs Atoms
3. Feb 3, 2009: The business case for giving away your best work for free
Posted under Business Models, Compelling Offers.
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