thinkbeta.com

Not what you buy, but Why is the question for marketers/entrepreneurs?

The following was excerpted from here:

Consumers are most interested in brands that offer value for the dollar, and not just low price, according to the Brand Keys 2010 Customer Loyalty Engagement Index.

The Index, which tracks 518 brands in 71 categories, demonstrates that consumers are becoming more brand-conscious and looking for established “real” brands that offer value, as opposed to brands which are endorsed by celebrities or heavily publicized.

Brand Keys 2010 Customer Loyalty Engagement Index Selected Top Brands

Airlines: JetBlue
Athletic Footwear: New Balance/Nike
Automotive: Hyundai
Beer (Regular): Budweiser
Breakfast Cereal (Adult): Cheerios
Breakfast Cereal (Children): Lucky Charms
Clothing Catalogs: J. Crew
Coffee: Dunkin’ Donuts
Computers (Laptops): Apple
Computers (Netbooks): Acer/Samsung
Digital Camera (SLR): Canon/Nikon
Digital Camera (Point-and-Shoot): Kodak
DVD Player: Samsung
HDTV (LCD): Samsung/Sony
HDTV (Plasma) Samsung
Laundry Detergent: Tide
Long Distance Providers: Verizon
Online Books & Music: Amazon.com
Online Travel Sites: Expedia.com/Kayak
Paper Towels: Bounty/7th Generation
Pizza: Domino’s
Quick-Serve Restaurant: McDonald’s
Retail Apparel: J. Crew
Retail Discount: Wal-Mart
Search Engine: Bing/Google
Soft Drink (Regular): Pepsi
Vodka: Grey Goose
Wireless Smartphone: Apple
Wireless Carrier: AT&T Wireless

About the Survey: For Brand Keys’ 2010 survey, 33,500 consumers ages 18-65, drawn from the nine US Census Regions, self-selected the categories in which they are consumers, and the brands for which they are customers. They were interviewed by phone, face-to-face and online.

I’m certain readers will find exception(s) to this listing. For instance, why AT&T? They certainly haven’t done iPhone users any favors – dropped calls + no legal tethering etc – and consumers will get more of the same with iPad’s wireless service. But data is data. Go figure. Hank

App Fund

“CNET and E! Online co-founder Kevin Wendle has teamed with MusicNation co-founder Daniel Klaus to form AppFund, a company designed to help entrepreneurs create and launch iPad and other Tablet based applications” reports Techcrunch. Their web site states:

A good App gets downloaded.

A great App gets integrated into your life.

We are looking to invest in entrepreneurs and development teams with revolutionary App ideas focused around:

• Enterprise, Small business B2B, and B2C solutions
• Collaborative entertainment consumption
• Platforms for original content distribution
• Social networking around location based connections, dating, shared experiences, and shopping
• Utilities for everyday use around the house, car, and office

We are looking for Apps that will become utilities in everyday life and Apps that will help business grow. So priority will be given to ideas that:

• Target early adopters and urban dwellers
• Target users 16-39 with higher incomes
• Incorporate video, audio, interactivity, and other capabilities unique to the iPad
• Have a long shelf life
• Have the potential to become “hits”

Readers can take it from here. Hank

Here Come the Super Bowl Ads

Today is Super Sunday, the day many people turn on their TVs not to watch the football game, but the commercials. Here is a link to information on some of the entertainment you will view this evening. GoDaddy is famous for pushing the envelope. Embedded below is their 2010 banned ad. Hank

Worth Checking Out: TVGorge

From http://tvgorge.com/

Hulu.com and all the other online TV sites has a new competitor that’s worthwhile checking out named TVGorge.com. Looks like there are on the order of 130 or so TV shows, some like 24 archived in their entirety. What’s really superior about this site is the superior video quality.

On their “About” page, they state: “TVGorge.com’s mission is to bring high quality streaming television shows to the masses. We accomplish this by searching and indexing TV streaming websites around the globe. Once our proprietary script has found the best source for a given TV show, it automatically compiles the information for our database.”

Check it out. No info on who’s behind it. Hank

Have A Happy Friday: When Comedy was Comedy

Who is Steve Ells?

Steve Ells was born in Indianapolis, IN in 1965 and never looked backed. He founded Chipotle as a springboard to his real love, gourmet food – he is a trained chef – but success with Chipotle got in the way.

A graduate of the famous Culinary Institute of America, Ells never meant to re-invent fast food. Quite the contrary: Having trained in classical French cooking and apprenticed at nationally celebrated gastronomic landmarks like San Francisco’s celebrated Stars restaurant, his goal was to start his own white-tablecloth, haute-cuisine palace. But restaurant start-ups are costly and risky. So he decided to move home to Denver and open a local version of the cheap, tasty taquerias that he had loved in California. The plan was to use Chipotle as a cash cow to fund the “real” restaurant he dreamed about.

That didn’t happen. Opened in an 800-square-foot former ice cream shop, Chipotle was an instant hit,making $30,000 a month. A rave newspaper review followed. The reviewer “said things like, ‘Everything has depth and character, nuance, layers and layers of flavor,’ describing it like it was some fine restaurant,” even though the dish in question was an oversized burrito that came wrapped in tinfoil, Ells noted. “After that, there was not only a line, but a line out the door. We ran out of food.” I suggest you read the entire story of Chipotle here from which the foregoing quote was taken. It is indeed an interesting success story. BTW, Steve’s total compensation in 2008 was on the order of $5,000,000.  Short video about him and his company below. Hank

$Pet Rocks$

This blog is by fellow ENTR200 instructor Beth Carroll, aka, BbB.

“All that is needed is a good idea, a thorough plan, hard work, and good marketing”  Gary Dahl

When my son was in kindergarten, he and his best friend sold rocks door to door in our neighborhood.  When he came home with his little fist full of dollar bills we praised him for his entrepreneurial spirit and told him to put the money in his piggy bank.  His friend’s parents were embarrassed and made their son return all of his earnings to the neighbors he “took”.  In my opinion the boys had a good plan and their timing was right.  They spotted free rocks on the ground and wondered if they could get people to pay for them.  They never could have sold this worthless product if they hadn’t been cute little kids with an enthusiastic sales pitch. Or, maybe they could have:

Think back to 1975.  Gary Dahl, while throwing back a few beers with his pal’s, came up with the Pet Rock idea. It doesn’t seem like a great idea, even now, but Gary had a plan. His brilliance was in the marketing and distribution of his rock. His product was inexpensive to produce; costing him 1 penny per rock,  packaged in what looked like a pet carrier, made of cheap cardboard with a little straw in the bottom.  He wrote a clever instruction manual that told people how to care for their rock.  He promoted it as “an ideal pet – easy and cheap, (with) a great personality”!   Instead of selling it as a toy he targeted the upper middle class gift market.  The rock was sold on fancy displays in high-end department stores.  The seemingly fragile rock pets, carefully displayed in their straw beds, tugged at heartstrings.    Pet Rocks made a great conversation piece.   Executives put them on their desks at work.  Privileged kids got them for Christmas that year.  Kids like me, whose parents would never pay for a silly rock, picked our “pets” up off the street and put them on dead grass we found in our yards.  Everyone gave their rock a name.

Gary’s goal was to make a million dollars by selling a million Pet Rocks with a $1 profit on each rock sold. Who ever would have guessed that this product would take off and sell well over a million units at $3.95* each in only six month’s?  When the fad was fading, Gary went back to being an advertising executive;  a richer one. *Relative Value $15 by today’s standards

Gary, maybe it’s time for you to bring back the Pet Rock for nostalgia’s sake?  They’re selling on E-bay for $47.99! Beth

Social Entrepreneurship Competition Announced – ENTR200 Students eligible

I recently received the following email:

The Social Entrepreneurship Initiative at Purdue University has been awarded funding from the Motorola Foundation for the 2010 National Idea to Product^® Competition for Social Entrepreneurship.  I [Nancy}would like to invite you to submit a student team entry for this year’s competition.

Awards are:  1^st = $10,000, 2^nd = $8,000, 3^rd = $2,000

· This is not a business plan competition.

· It is a product-feasibility competition.

· The product does not have to be complete.

· Projects that have identified a strong concept and a compelling need have done well in past events.

· The nonprofit or NGO partnership does not have to be “official.”

Your team will need to fill out the attached RFI along with a brief description of the project.  Please keep the description to one page-500 words or less, much like an executive summary.  It will be blind reviewed.  To protect the integrity of the program, please refrain from mentioning the university in this document.

Just touch briefly on these issues for the  RFI (include attached cover sheet)

Make sure to address:

(1) Potential partnership with Local, National or International non-profit organization.

(2) Benefits the product/service provides in keeping with the social mission of the partner,

(3) Type of technology or service provided.

Deadlines and timeline:

Feb 12, 2010 This RFP will be due.

Feb  24, 2010 Notification to top 12 teams

March 26, 2010 3-5 page document due from participating teams

April 17, 2010 National Idea to Product Competition for Social Entrepreneurship.

If this type of competition does not fit your program, please feel free to forward on to others.

Again I apologize for not getting this information to you earlier.  Please feel free to call or email me for more information.

Good Luck!

Nancy

Nancy Clement

Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship
Social Entrepreneurship Initiative

Interim Director -

Community, National, Global

1201 W. State St.

West Lafayette, IN  47907

765.494.9884

http://www.purdue.edu/innovate/

http://cathub.org/liaisons

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~nic/

Apps: Ideas, Concepts and Coding for iPhone & iPad

From Tim's FB photos

Unless you reside under a rock, you are aware that Apple last week announced the iPad. As Purdue students in ENTR200 or interested entrepreneurs passing by, here’s the deal: what is important about the announcement is not yet another device from Apple that you love, hate, take sides on, can’t afford, won’t afford or are indifferent about, but “How can I build a business around what the iPad does offer?” [See chart at bottom for negatives on iPad.] Since iPad development is built on the same Software Development Kit (SDK 3.2) as the iPhone, iPhone developers have a huge leg up developing for this new device. See here for the economics of app development.

Patrich Thibodeau in a 1/29/10 post captures the essence when he wrote: “The iPad is partly a device but it is mostly an economic development platform. It’s an accessible means for a lot of independent people to create new value and that’s the real genius of Apple’s product. The only reason why the iPad matters at all is for its ability to expand the Apps market.”

I have previously announced that Tim Watson [Twitter] [LinkedIn], a junior in CS @ Purdue University and a iPhone developer- 4 apps, will speak to our ENTR200 classes Tuesday. I have asked Tim to provide enough info to get those interested in development up and running, and those with ideas/concepts an overview of what’s involved in getting an idea to”click here” on iTunes, all of this in 1/2 hour or so! But wait, there’s more!

The iPad offers lots more real estate than the iPhone (9.7″ versus 3.5″ screen for instance). What are some of the ways this increased capability may be taken advantage of? This past Saturday, I was one of the judges for nine Student Veteran Organizations (SVOs) competing for funding under the auspicious of Purdue’s Operation Diploma which in turn is under the Military Family Research Institute [www.fmri.purdue.edu]. Sara Appel, an Outreach Specialist was there assisting with the competition and has some solid ideas for use of the iPad++++app development to help students with disabilities. She will address the class first for about 15 minutes, then Tim. Oh, and you can guess which one is Tim in the photo at left. Stay tuned. And Colleen who commented on Saturday’s blog “I would love to see some of the abstract games I play in my head realized on my iPhone,” there is no reason you can’t. See clip from last night’s Grammys below. Hank

From ReadWrite Web

Link here:

What’s happenin’ in our greenhouse?

This blog has little to do with entrepreneurship but lots to do with smelling the roses which entrepreneurs have to learn to do also. See the video below. Hank