Startup Revolution

Brand Ideals
Learning your company's "brand ideals" may be the most important branding work few startups accomplish. SEO and content take a backseat to widget development for most startups. 

Yet isn't the most important question WHERE are the points of connection with potential customers and/or investors? The latter, investors, receive plenty of attention when they are easy. Investors want CONSUMERS and lots of 'em.

So the best way to connect with investors is to connect with consumers and the best way to connect with consumers is to know, articualte and share your "brand ideals":

 * Eliciting Joy: Activating experiences of happiness, wonder, and limitless possibility.
* Enabling Connection: Enhancing the ability of people to connect with each other and the world in meaningful ways.
* Inspiring Exploration: Helping people explore new horizons and new experiences.
* Evoking Pride: Giving people increased confidence, strength, security, and vitality.
* Impacting Society: Affecting society broadly, including by challenging the status quo and redefining categories.  

Those "brand ideals" come from Grow: How Ideals Power Profits At The World's Largest Companies by Jim Stengel and is a must read for any startup entrepreneur who wants investors....after they've won the hearts and minds of consumers. 

We've got a wonderful Men's Health Month Hangout this Friday with +Mark Traphagen and +Martin W. Smith speaking about their experience with cancer. Mark…

Today is my day to say THANK YOU to a mentor, coach and fellow cancer survivor. Today is Mark Traphagen (@MarkTraphagen) day on http://www.curecancerstarter.org. 

Today is CureCancerStarter's second day in existence and it is dedicated to a man who has taught me more about the wonders of GooglePlus that I ever believed existed (full convert now).

More than Mark's particular expertise is his demonstration of the GIVE NOW and worry about everything else later philosophy. When I asked Mark to speak at my Free Internet Saturday meeting he didn't calculate ROI or the reach of the event he came, shared and helped make the idea bigger.

This SHARE FIRST idea is at the CORE of CureCancerStarter.org, a new website that costs a lot in development but is FREE to use and NO HOUSE MONEY. 100% of donations go to the cancer research our donors want to donate to.

Some would say creating such an idea with my Atlantic BT salary, life savings and a generous grant from Atlantic BT is crazy. I say it is right, true and valuable and I learned that idea, at least partially, from Mark Traphagen.

Thanks Mark and the minute we add the "donate in someone's name" feature I'm gong to retag my UW Carbone donations in your name:

https://www.curecancerstarter.org/campaign/personalizing-treatment-for-colorectal-cancers 

PS. if you are a startup and don't follow mark on GPlus you are nuts.