Business Bricks

Now we’re about as settled and unpacked as we’re going to be I want to start a small business group in Brighton. I’m calling it a cluster because [i] the term network makes me think of automatons and, er, ecademists [ii] other terms I like, like guild, aren’t quite appropriate. So: if you’re [a] interested in coming along, or [b] have any input to share into how we should run it and when, where and how frequently we should meet, or [c] might want to start another cluster in your own locale - email me.

I like it when people make up new words (and this one uses an s, not a z). Pokemonetise, v, to make money by appealing to the stupid human instinct to collect dumb things.

Paul Graham says start-ups worry far too much about people copying them - and couldn’t be more right.
My latest unprovable theory is that Can’t Explain (see _______’s Big Idea) and Won’t Explain (people sitting stealthily on ideas) are the No1 and No2 causes of start-up failure. What do you think?

Jakob Nielsen does some research with eyetracking and heatmaps to show that, yes, people do read websites in a kind of F shape pattern (two horizontal sweeps followed by a single vertical sweep).

For some reason, the F shape got me to thinking about the relationship between web design and bricks and mortar (b&m) retail design. Q: What can web designers teach store designers? (In the early days of the web, that question was reversed). A: Probably a lot. Because most things people do on the web are trackable, there’s a whole lot of averaged out data and rules of thumbs into how people browse and how people buy. Unless you’ve read some Paco Underhill (anyone?), you probably won’t know the same for b&m retail. But b&m retailers get to watch the way individuals (don’t) browse and (don’t) buy in their stores. How about a show of hands? How many web retailers have ever watched real-life people try to browse and buy from their website (like a shopkeeper does every day)?

Simon Waldman of Guardian Unlimited on writing boring headlines for search engine optimisation (SEO): “I compare it to supermarkets and apples. If you make apples and want them to be sold in the supermarket - they’ve got to be a certain shape and size and shinyness, otherwise the supermarket won’t have them. There are those who say it’s great that apples these days are all uniform and shiny; others who say our produce has mutated into something bland. As a producer - it’s just the deal you have to do if you want distribution.” And this is supposed to be an argument for (not against) SEO? Tschk. (Via Jeff Jarvis. See previously: The McDonaldisation of Websites.)

Jason Fried says make tiny decisions. I’ve been thinking around this a lot recently. The problem with small business owners I know is that we can’t seem to put down the urge to make big decisions. We want to reinvent (our products, our make money models, our homepages). But the paradox of reinvention is that, if you reinvent something too many times (two? three? four?) it loses its soul.

A queue = a cue, explains Seth. See too, from /old, Brick Nos 144, 56 and 53.

Steve Dobson writes in: “We (Unusual Hotels of the World) need a new logo. We’re working on a site redesign, but the problem is that the least unusual thing about the site is our logo. We’ve lived with it for a few years but it’s too corporate. And we’re a bit stuck for ideas.”

The old logo is top left on Steve’s site
http://www.uhotw.com

Can you help Steve? You don’t need to be a graphic designer, or even able to draw. Steve’s stuck for ideas so if you have an idea, just write a sentence or two to explain it. The only remit is that he’s after an idea that reflects the “unusual” part of the brand, not just the “hotels”. If you can draw (or can’t draw, but like to draw) you can post a sketch to me and I’ll scan your sketch, and add it. Or, if you have easy access to a scanner, you can scan it and email me.

Pick Me Up editor Dougald shares sales lessons learnt from his summer job from hell. “[Selling is] a bit like hitch-hiking - there’s no point getting cross about the cars that don’t stop for you, because once you start scowling, no one will want to give you a lift.” In other words, keep your belief in the law of averages.

Do ugly websites sell more than pretty ones? There’s been a bit of chatter about the uglification of websites lately, specifically around this essay by Mark Daoust. My analysis? Anecdotally, yup - ugly websites probably do, on modal average, sell better than pretty ones. But that doesn’t say you should deliberately build an ugly website (even if you’re selling something cheap, a suggestion made by several commenters). Nope, people are mixing cause and correlation. This is all amply explained, if you ask me, by some correlation between ugly websites and time and money constraints. Having no time and no money forces you to build an ugly but simple website. And simplification, not uglification, sells.

It couldn’t be a coincidence that, as I read Joanna Glasner’s short piece for Wired, Antisocial networking gets hip, this line came over the radio, (a track from Ringleader of the Tormentors): “here everybody’s friendly, but nobody’s friends.” Is networking broken?

Dixons name is to disappear from the high st. We like to think we might have played a small part in this passing.

The TUC thinks the red tape crisis (as reported by the CBI, Chambers, IoD amongst others) is a myth, and has just inked a report called Slaying the Red Tape Myths. Well it would, wouldn’t it?

But no matter, because in this case the TUC is right. I just read (via Adrian Pepper) a new IoD report that says red tape, taxation and skills shortages are the three main factors holding back business growth. Do not swallow. You can make macro excuses about red tape etc etc, but the real factors holding back business growth are always bad ideas and bad execution.

1-50 list by Scott Heiferman, who co-founded Meetup.

I most like
2. Because it solves a problem they don’t have
27. Because it’s clearly something for computer people
48. Because it doesn’t tell them why to use it

And I’d add
51. Because it has far too many pages (or far too few)
52. Because it assumes they aren’t simultaneously looking
at yy other sites open in yy separate tabs or windows
53. Because it makes them think

I’m a bit late on this (my laptop and broadband spent the last few days taking turns toppling over) but according to Caterina (Flickr) Fake it’s a bad time to start a company (bad competition, bad talent, bad business models). Two good ripostes: [1] David Heinemeier Hansson takes the opposite pole: it’s a great time to start a business [2] Brian Fling is more level-headed: anytime is the right time to start a company.