Getting Ready For The New Year

Just a few days left in 2011 and everyone's getting ready for the new year. It's very likely that for christmas you received a device on which you can use the kindle app from Amazon. Whatever device you have (smartphone, tablet, computer or an actual Kindle reader) here is a book you need to download right now: The Flinch by Julien Smith.

The cost to you is 0 (brought to us kindly by the Domino Project) but the effect will be great. Spend the next few days you have off to read this book and get ready to fight in the new year.

Here is one of my favourite extracts from the book:
"Straight-A student. Straight to college. Straight to work. Straight up the corporate ladder. Straight to the suburbs.
Damn, you've been scared straight."

For the New Year, read this book and anything else that will inspire you. Get ready to fight, don't flinch and start! If you need help we will be here. We will continue writing and you can always reach us on hello@minimoko.com.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Does Greece Stand a Chance?

(download)

Click here to download:

does-greece-stand-a-chance-oAkdqBbhyqEfJbcvvriw.zip (893 KB)

It was an amazing experience, with a lot of lessons and a great deal of inspiration. The question that remains is, does Greece stand a chance?

Judging from what I experienced the three days of the event, it does. A new cultural shift is taking place, where people no longer expect everything to be taken care of for them. New ideas are surfacing and a startup culture is growing. If Greece is to get out of the situation it is, it can only happen with the bright minds of the people that are creating new ideas and by targeting the global marketplace.

Some points of advice for the people starting up in Greece:

• Focus. I said it yesterday and I'll say it again. Because you are speaking to a global marketplace, doesn't mean you are targeting 7bn people. Focus on a niche so you can start.
• Create a pay it forward culture. Your little black book should be open and you should be focusing on connecting other people.
• Collaborate with others, learn to be open and to work in teams.
• Follow the advice from our manifesto.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Focus, Focus and Then Focus Some More

I will keep on saying this until my mouth gets dry and you want to shut me up. If you want to have a chance at succeeding then you need to focus.

I spent this weekend working with teams at STARTup Live Athens, mentoring them and advising them on branding. I kept saying one thing over and over and over, “You need to focus!”. Some of them listened. Some that I spoke to but didn’t force them to do it, didn’t. The latter had some really good ideas that were on the right track to be focused and target a niche, but they got confused and thought that in order to scale they had to sell their product to everyone. To them, that was the answer to a “global” market and a bigger user-base.

What was the result? Pure dilution of what they stood for and no way to enter a market. Ideas that stood for something and tools that worked for someone, became huge swiss army knives that no-one would want to buy.

What got them there was confusion of how brands became what they are today. Usually when we look at a successful brand we don’t look at what got them to where they are, but what they are doing now. So if Facebook is for everyone, why shouldn’t we? The reality is that Facebook didn’t start there, it started as a network for Harvard students. Google didn’t start by offering all the tools it does today. It started as a search engine and to people’s minds it still stands as the place you go to find out stuff on the net.

If you want to have at least a chance to success, then do me a favour and focus. You don’t have to completely forget your expansion dreams, you’ll need those later. To start though you will need to be very focused and have a very specific market, otherwise you will burn out and fail.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Are You in Love?

This post is a result of a discussion I had with Katerina during the weekend at STARTup live Athens. It turns out that was also the topic of her talk at the end of the event.

What brought up this topic was the approach someone had taken with his project. He had worked on it for a long time, had not made any commercial progress and just wanted to finish it and sell it. My immediate response was that he would fail. Why? Because there was no longer any love.

If you are going to start something from scratch and make it a success, just dedication and perspiration will not cut it. You need to be in love with what you are doing. If you are not, when everything starts failing and you reach a critical point, you will quit. It's only love to what you do that can keep you going when everything else has failed.

If you are in love with what you are doing, then awesome! If not, then you probably need to take some time off and reconsider things.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

minimoko @ STARTup Live Athens #1 This Weekend!

With 29 ideas already subitted, the event will surely be buzzing with people and innovations. As part of the mentor team, I will be available to listen, give feedback, offer advice & an expert opinion, criticise and help the teams simplify!

Looking forward to meeting all the teams at the event!

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

minimoko @ STARTup Live Athens #1

In November STARTup Live will take place for the first time in Athens! This is an opportunity not just to work with others but also give hope to boosting the Greek ecosystem.

As stated on their site "In short, people from different backgrounds come together to present ideas, listen to new thoughts, work their asses off and get to know each other. This is steroids for your idea. Pitch, form your team, work, get feedback from startups, experts and mentors, present what you have achieved in front of about 150 people including experts from all over Europe. The process is accompanied by coaches, business angels, start-up entrepreneurs and all other participants. You get to know all these people in an informal way, usually standing there with a beer in hand hooking up with your future investors or mentors."

The team behind the event has asked us to join them to mentor the teams so that they produce projects that matter, help them simplify and give them inspiration.

Tickets are just €15 and include food and drinks so if you are in Athens or can travel to Athens during these days, head over to the booking page and get your tickets.

See you there!

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Mix and Focus

On Monday I talked about what you can achieve in just 48 hours. What I observed during StartupWeekend was that you need a few things in order to achieve the best results.

1. You need the right mix. Of people that is. The team must cover every aspect of business. Marketers, business people, designers, developers, all need to work together as a team to come up with ideas and implement them.
2. You need to focus. During the ideation process you can get lost in features and added value. This can easily end up diluting the real offering. Decide what problem you are solving and do that.
3. You need to do the work. Coming up with big ideas is just the beginning. If you cannot implement them, you haven't really achieved anything.
4. You need to find a reason. Just building something is not enough. In order for people to connect with you and buy into your product/service you need to find reason in what you are doing. Why are you doing this? Search within your team to find your reason.
5. Optional: Do some research. If you have the time, do some research. But don't take into account all comments. If you just listen to what people want you won't be trully innovative.

Now that you have everything, get ready to launch!

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

What You Can Do in 48 Hours

(download)

Click here to download:

what-you-can-do-in-48-hours-mnGErAjEBasqJFnodhyD.zip (7.93 MB)

What I found to be crucial in the teams while mentoring them, was the diversity of the group and focus. Gather around you the right group of people, focus on one thing and you can get more done in 48 hours than other achieve in a month.

If all these teams could come up with great ideas and prototypes in just this time, what's stopping you from starting? Find what you want to do, get a team and start working.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Greenwich, United Kingdom

More Places at Startup Weekend London! #swlondon

The event was sold out for a couple of weeks and this change means that more people will be able to join us next weekend for 3 days of inspiration and business building.

As mentioned in our previous post, I will be mentoring teams during the weekend to make sure that they build strong brands that stand out.

If you haven't got a ticket yet, you can get it here. The offer that we had posted a few weeks ago still stands.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

minimoko @ Startup Weekend London + An Offer!

As taken from their site "Startup Weekend is an intense 54 hour event which focuses on building a web or mobile application which could form the basis of a credible business over the course of a weekend. The weekend brings together people with different skillsets - primarily software developers, graphics designers and business people - to build applications and develop a commercial case around them."

We are helping the team behind Startup Weekend to attract more amazing people (especially designers) and we will also be mentoring the teams on branding during the weekend! If you join us you will get the chance to meet amazing people, start a new project and get a chance to work with us.

Now comes the offer, the readers of our blog get a 20% discount to the event by using the discount code DESIGN20. First go to the tickets page, then click on Enter Discount Code, apply the discount and you will get a ticket for a mere £79.20. The ticket covers your entry to the event and includes 3 dinners, 2 lunches, 2 breakfasts and all the caffeine you'll need!

See you all in September!

Posted by Harry Mylonadis