Stop Trying to Make Money

When most of us start up we have one goal, to make money. We want to have the freedom to be the ones to make the choices and to keep all the money that we are making. The problem is that a lot of the times people get confused and think that making money is their purpose.

If this happens everything goes downhill and leads to inevitable failure. We need to change our attitude and see money as the result of our purpose and efforts. We need to focus on making things better and helping others. Once you "forget" about money and focus on helping, you will be able to take greater risks and innovate. This will eventually lead to making money, if you are doing the right thing.

I know it's difficult but try to put making money in second place. Focus on what you really want to do, what you want your purpose to be and how you can help others. Slowly you will start feeling better about what you do and also make more money.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Nobody's Perfect

You may have noticed that nothing was posted for a few days during last week on this blog. Although we have made a commitment that we will be always posting on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, last week we messed it up.

The reason? Our side project, CPU Wars, had to be shipped to all our backers and that took an excessively longer time than we had planned. It was the first time we were doing a task like this, at this kind of scale, and as expected we underestimated the effort needed. At least we got everything shipped and our backers are very happy.

Of course I felt bad about not keeping my promise and started judging my decisions, it's very difficult to quiet the inner voice. What's important is that I acknowledged my failure, came to terms with it and focused on what I had to do in that moment. At the end of the day, nobody's perfect and I had to choose what was most important at that moment.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Act On It

Yesterday I was discussing with one of the backers of CPU Wars, about the creation of the project and its success. What made this idea real and successful? Acting on it. 

A lot of other people might have had the same or similar idea, but never acted on it. When you are faced with a new idea, with the unknown you have two options:

1. Start working on it
2. Do nothing and then complain about the great idea that you once had and never did anything about

For me, it has always been the first. This way, if I fail at least I can say that I gave it a try. Of course this is just the beginning, but what sets apart wantrepreneurs from entrepreneurs is not generating or finding ideas. It's acting on them.

We all have a lot of ideas, so when you find that certain one, the one that makes you feel all tingly when you think about it, act on it. Stop procrastinating and thinking about all the worst scenarios. Dedicate some of your free time and start working, at least you'll get the experience.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Design Matters

Design has an important problem. Good design is usually invisible and most people can't perceive it's value. The truth is that everything that we interact with has been designed either by someone or nature.

Good design can make all the difference, whether you are creating a product or service. Design deals not only with the perceivable beauty of things but more importantly with the minute features that make or break something. Take a minute and think of small things that have been specifically designed to enhance your experience that you rarely think about. The locking sound of an iPhone, the groove underneath your kitchen's work-tops, unobtrusive notifications in web apps. Everything has been carefully designed to make your experience better.

The most important of the above is the experience. Good design works to create a good and more natural experience for your customers/users. To get the benefits you need to embrace design and introduce it into your culture. How you do this is up to you, but the best choice is to start learning and bring designers in your team.

Don't overlook the power of design, embrace it and create things that are usable, beautiful and "natural".

Posted by Helen Amygdalaki // Lelou 

Reflect

Failing and making mistakes is not enough in order to learn and become better. You also need to dedicate time on reflecting on what has happened and why it didn't work.

Here's where a problem lies. When most people reflect on bad experiences, their feelings resurface. There's anger, anxiety, stress, fear, tears and emptiness. In order for the reflection to work and make you better you need to turn these feelings around.

Examine the past experiences without passing judgement and feeling bad. Things happen for a reason and by reflecting positively on the past you learn and expand your brain capacity. You can even create new pathways in your brain and start feeling better. Think of what could have gone worse or how your failure protected you from things getting worse.

As always, for this to work you need to turn it into a practice. Try to at least dedicate an hour once a week reflecting on past experiences. Turning the bad ones into good ones and learning from them. You will then gradually start feeling better and facing problems with a more positive attitude.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Review and Check Along the Way

I almost made a huge mistake. CPU Wars, which I've been working on for some months now, is one step away from production.

Since some parts of it were created about 6 months ago, I was resting comfortably thinking that they were completed. And then yesterday as I was browsing around I realised that one of the descriptions I had written was incorrect! One of the CPUs, that at the time of writing was the latest one, had become the secondary option from the company.

I was lucky and got this fixed before the printer created the plates and started printing. A few days late and it would have cost me an entire print run!

Whatever you're working on, eventually some parts of it will be created some time before the final product. Never rest thinking that they are 100% complete, they are always at 99%. Do a full review before creating the final product, making sure that you also check any outside sources. Then just before launching/printing/finishing make a final review.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

New Year (Re)solutions

If you start listening to everyone, then you have probably heard various things about 2012. The world is going to come to an end, there will be a double-dip recession, a bigger eurozone crisis and basically everything is going to get worse.

My question to you then is, if everything is going to collapse, then what are you waiting for? You've been waiting all this time for things to get better, to get the right chance, for the economy to settle and every other excuse. Well, all these things won't happen. Find your way and start doing what you love. Don't just think about it, do it. This is your chance.

Forget about a list of resolutions for this year. Choose one thing, focus and do it. Once you've done it and you've reached your goal, then maybe move to another one (if there's any more time left). If you want to share your troubles then send me an email on harry [at] minimoko [dot] com.

Happy New Year everyone and all our wishes for your new beginnings!

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Support Your Decision

To much upheaval this week HP announced its new brand image. I won't repost anything about it here since a quick search will yield hundreds of results. Here's just one of them.

I won't also comment on if the design of the logo is appropriate or not. What I will comment on is HP's undecisiveness when it comes to using their new logo. I'm sure it took months to create the new image and according to roumors HP is not sure whether the new logo will be used on all its products.

If you make such an important change then have the courage and power to support it no matter what. Decisions need to be made and if you believe they add value to your brand then you need to support it no matter what.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Have Fun

So what's the lesson here? I owe the success of the project to having fun. This was never a "serious" project. I just created something that I found fun to do and had the most fun I could when it came to creation, design, copy and video. And this is communicated in everything we have done for the project.

We've created a small fun brand that is relevant to a very niche group, and that's what you need to do.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Don't Take It Personally

I used to have a terrible temper. As soon as someone told me off, judged me or accused me of something I would explode. It got so bad that I ended up having stress attacks and idiopathic tremor. Because of that something changed, I realised that it wasn't worth it. I stopped taking everything personally and started letting things go. Studying zen and practicing breathing definitely helped with that.

When you are in a situation like I used to be, don't take it personally. You don't know what the other person has gone through. They might be having a bad day, their partner might have left them, they might have had a bad childhood or are genuinely bad people. Taking it personally, reacting as they would expect you to react, getting stressed about it can only lead to bad things.

When you are next faced with a situation like this, do nothing. Take some deep breaths, leave the room if it's getting out of hand, try to turn your anger filters on and tell yourself that it doesn't really matter. Don't take it personally and you will see things getting better.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis