2007 July « Kristin Savage

Economics and Business

29, July, 2007 — Kristin

Adam Smith, the famous economist who coined the term the invisible hand of the market said: “those goods and services perceived as most beneficial, efficient, or of highest quality will naturally be those that are most profitable”.

It seems the basic requirement for a product or service to succeed is simple: It has to be beneficial. If it is beneficial, then a potential customer will value it, and therefore quite likely purchase it.

After that, bringing the economics and business together is pretty basic:

“… a market — that’s a group of people who will directly or indirectly pay money for something …..a product — that’s an offering of a new kind of good or service that is brought to a market… a company — that’s an organized business entity that brings a product to a market.” Marc Andreessen.

In the end, it’s the forces of the [invisible hand of] the market that make life better for all of us.

Posted in Economics. 1 Comment »

Innovation works anywhere

27, July, 2007 — Kristin

Greg Webber is an innovative surfboard shaper from Australia.

He shapes great surfboards and his approach makes for excellent boards which work well in the conditions they’ve been created for.

Webber Surfboards developed the Afterburner. What a board!! If you’re interested you can watch a video of Greg Webber talking about the merits of the afterburner by clicking through the links: surfboards - afterburner - video on the webber website. It’s all explained there. Nice!

It was a little more expensive than most new boards are, but in my opinion it was worth every cent. Whats $150 extra when you’re surfing it every week, and it brings you that much more enjoyment? Considering cost/benefit ratio it’s probably $0.50 extra each surf, but for bliss. And it sure brings me more enjoyment than a $15 movie ticket. Speaking of movies, Bra Boys was an interesting flick.

I’ve had mine nearly two years and its still going strong. It might seem strange, but I kinda want it to deteriorate so that I can buy a new one and again experience that schoolboy excitement of having a new surfboard.

Soon enough i’m sure!

:^)

Posted in Startups. No Comments »

Album Release Party - Lou Goodisson

24, July, 2007 — Kristin

Lou Goodisson this Thursday night, 8:30pm at Happy. Free entry.

Might see you there…

Posted in Music. 1 Comment »

Checking the focus

24, July, 2007 — Kristin

Rob Adams, in his book a good hard kick in the ass is refreshing.

” in love with your idea? get over it….”

It’s a good way to think regarding your business. If you’re too in-love with your idea you’ll lose the focus of other important matters.

I suppose different start-up founders focus on different areas of their business. Lets look at 3 things that might make up a company and analyse one of them…

1. Cash $$$

2. Idea

3. Time

Time can often be under-estimated in terms of its importance… time to market, time to get a task done, time to implement an update. Time isn’t money, time is the essence of life.

Or maybe the focus should be energy conservation . I heard about Google’s new initiative today.

——————————–

I’ve knowingly failed to include customers as a focus point, assuming that if you’re building something users want, this will take care of them, so it’s part of the idea/product. Also left out, Team. Team will be the ones who execute on building what users want (or not). And so this could be a product/idea sub-category.

Posted in Ideas. No Comments »

last names… you’re stuck with them

21, July, 2007 — Kristin

“every fight is a food fight when you’re a cannibal” Demetri Martin

Posted in Miscellaneous. No Comments »

lots of $$ and still missing

20, July, 2007 — Kristin

When I watch this video, I cant help but be reminded of the comments I read about start-ups and how having too much funding too early can be a trap.

BMX guy here had plenty of resources, yet he still missed the mark.

It seems that missing by a little can be missing by alot.

Missing might be starting a start-up that doesn’t solve pain. Must a start-ups solution to its customers pain be good enough to motivate them to get their wallet out?

I reckon yes.

Posted in Startups. No Comments »

Blast from the past…Housebeat

17, July, 2007 — Kristin

Here is a blast from the past. This is a video of our teenage band called Housebeat. We played mid-nineties hip-hop in our ‘own’ way. You might see me on the drums. The clip is from the final of the teen band competition at CTC in the Michael Fowler Centre a few years back. 1994?? Geez, time flies… anyone remember this? ;^/

Posted in Music. 3 Comments »

consolidating all the ’stuff’

15, July, 2007 — Kristin

Planhq - web-based business planning software. A great tool to park all of our stuff.

Having a place to consolidate our plan is a great help. Things are abstract enough as they are so consolidation tools are welcome.

Initially I had my doubts as we already use basecamp to manage our projects, and didn’t want to double-up. Planhq is alot more than a project management tool though. It helps the founder with the investor side of things. I’m loving it and plan to sign up once our free-trial is over.

I still love basecamp though.

:^)

Posted in Miscellaneous. 1 Comment »

chicken and egg

12, July, 2007 — Kristin

It’s obviously a necessity in commerce related websites to have both the chicken and the egg for action to take place.

One of the challenges in the early days however, seems that you need to make sure you don’t have too much of either the chicken or the egg at once. Letting them grow together has to be the best (but isn’t always the fastest) approach.

I guess it’s about having both the buyer and the seller user rate growing steadily. This can be a challenge, as patience is required. But we’re sure the best, not the fastest, wins in the end.

In the meantime we keep reminding ourselves… slow and steady wins the race.

Posted in Availabuild. 1 Comment »