Steve Sammartino's Startup School transcription

Steve Sammartino’s Startup School transcription

By Fiona Boyd |

Earlier this month, Steve Sammartino entrepreneur and founder of Rentoid conducted a two-day intensive StartUp School in Melbourne and we’ve received rave reviews at NCM from several attendees. The Sydney StartUp School takes place this weekend, the 21st and 22nd November.

This post is a transcription of an interview Fiona Boyd did with Steve in the lead-up to the Melbourne StartUp School, called StartUp School with Steve Sammartino.

Fiona: Steve Sammartino writes the Startup blog and is the founder of the internet business Rentoid.com, and he’s talking with me today. Welcome Steve.

Steve: Hey Fiona, how are you?

Fiona: I’m good. You have a new thing that you’re doing next month and it’s called the Startup school…

Steve: Yeah.

Fiona: And look, I know you teach marketing already at Melbourne uni so I’m not surprised that you’re doing something like start up school but I’m wondering, what is it about teaching this way that made you want to do your own, you know, intensive weekend?

Steve: Yeah. It’s funny because it’s going to be pretty much the opposite of all the stuff that I teach at university and I think it’s an interesting juxtaposition because in startup land everything is so much different to what we think business is all about, because pretty much everything we learn in business and in business books, even a lot of the startup and entrepreneurial books out there, they all assume that there’s some revenue, that things already exist. They assume that we’ve got funding. So Startup School came about as an idea, well, I’m obviously involved in teaching, but it came about because I kept getting a lot of questions on my blog about deep items which just couldn’t be treated in that format so I thought why don’t I just run an intensive course for two days where I really condense all of the stuff that I’ve been writing about for three years into a two-day, you know, really hardcore bootstrapping course, these are the tactics that win when you’ve got zero revenue to get your business started.

Fiona: It is true, there’s a vast gulf between business writing, the academic world of business, and the actual doing, starting with nothing and creating something, isn’t there? There’s just such a huge difference.

StartUp School with Steve Sammartino - better than book learning

Steve: Yeah, and that’s what I’m trying to focus on as well, is that it’s kind of less strategic, what it is all about, and we’ve talked about sequence before, it’s all about the tactics and the sequences that actually create momentum. And I always use the momentum idea because when we’re small, to gain momentum, we’ve to to move quick and we’ve got to know the tactics that result in revenue very quickly. And what I found was that in the first year of my startup world was that I had to, I had to change my thinking because I was so ensconced in planning and thinking things through too deeply rather than going to market, trying and it, and I lost a lot of money and time doing that.

So Startup School’s all about, what are the things that win, how do you test an idea quickly, how do you validate it, how do you get to revenue, how do you create exposure and media and all of these things that will get the brand awareness out there and will get people using your stuff really quickly. So the whole idea is how can we take all of this knowledge and put it all into actions which will leave the course and know exactly what to do and how to do it next, cheaply, quickly, resulting in revenue.

Fiona: Yup. Look your first Startup Schools are in Melbourne the weekend of November 7 and 8, and then later in the month Sydney, November 21 and 22. Are you hoping to do more beyond these?

Steve: It’s funny because I, I just thought, look, I’ll put it out there and see how it goes to just do a one-off event. But the reality is, really, I just wanted it to be a one singular event, because my business is Rentoid, it’s always going to be Rentoid, and the whole idea is, in startup land, and I call it startup land, there’s a need for us to contribute to the community. We forget that when we work in large corporations that we always have training, we’ve got infrastructure, we’ve got industry bodies, and all of these things to protect us and help us and build our little world…

Fiona: There’s a lot of support and structure that you aren’t aware is there until you leave.

Steve: Exactly. And I think within the startup community, like you’re doing right now, is that we need to support each other and build an infrastructure and a community. And we all know about Silicon Valley and San Francisco, but there’s no reason why we can’t have that in Melbourne and Sydney, and because there’s no official industry structures and ways to learn these tricks, I think, I feel as though I need to give back a little bit as well, of the stuff that I’ve learnt.

And you know, I lost a lot of money in some early ventures because I didn’t know some of the things I know now. And by pulling together a course where I’ll teach people the exact things to do, I think I can save some of the people who are leaving their corporate existence and starting up, ways to do things quickly and cheaply and really contribute something to them, so that’s the whole idea.

Fiona: What would someone wanting to do a startup learn, at Startup School with you and from you that they’re unlikely to be able to learn and find out anywhere else?

Steve: I think the number one thing is to be able to do things cheaply. And I always say, people don’t run out of money, they run out of time. And time and money are inextricably linked now…

Fiona: In fact time has a higher value, I think. When money’s running out, you suddenly realise how precious time is in your equation.

Steve: Totally. And the way that we run out of time is, it might be investors becoming impatient, it might be that we have family requirements and income where we’ve only allowed a certain amount of time to get the revenue that would replace our career or job or salary revenue. It might be that we have other external pressures. So the one thing you’ll really learn in StartUp School is how to do things cheaply. And the famous example that I give now…famous? The crazy example that I give is the website startupschool.com.au, which look pretty tremendous, I did for $200.

Fiona: How did you do that?

Steve: Seriously! I don’t even know how to code, I don’t know how to design…

Fiona: It does look fantastic…

Steve: …yeah, it looks really cool. I don’t know how to code, I don’t know how to design, I don’t know how to do any of these things – CSS – but what I do know is how to build the relationships and build the infrastructures that get stuff done quickly and cheaply. Once you know that you change things dramatically. Now I know people who’ve spent 3, 5, 10, 30 thousand dollars on website businesses before they’ve even had a customer or a revenue.

Now, all of a sudden, if you know how to do it for $200, like I did with the StartUp School site which you can have a look at, then, that changes things dramatically, because how many businesses can you get out there, how long can you keep going when you’re only spending micro amounts of money to give yourself a chance, to build customers, to work out what’s going to work in your business? So the number one thing is, how to keep costs low, how to get your business on TV, how to get your website built quickly, how to build and infrastructure and a supply chain. I think the number one thing that I’ll teach people is how to bootstrap, the art of bootstrapping….

Fiona: …stay alive long enough…

Steve: Stay alive long enough because your costs are low to get to the chance to have time to work out what works.

Fiona: Are you taking a boot camp sort of approach, Steve? Are the participants going to get to do stuff themselves or are they just going to learn from you? How’s it going to work?

Steve: Yeah, so, I’ll be presenting – I’ve got ten sections broken up over the two days – I’ll be presenting for the first half of each of those sections, and then we’ll be actually doing those other bits, so we’ll be doing testing, we’ll be doing things like how to pitch, what would the media angles be, what are the steps and so on? I’ll be validating and testing, knowing that everyone understands what we’ve gone through, and I’ll have a working folder to go back with, so it’s almost going to be a reference manual on how to do things, so I won’t just be up there talking, we’ll be getting involved and working together so that you really know – it’s kind of hands on in that way, it’ll be interactive. It won’t just be me standing up talking, it’ll be like, OK, here’s the principles, here’s how we do it, now let’s go round and do it together. So it’ll be really involving in that way.

Fiona: Hands on is important for a startup person because, if you are telling them what you know, who’s to say they’re going to get to know it themselves unless they’re doing something that consolidates that. Would you agree?

Steve: Totally, yeah. I think that you can’t really know something unless you’ve got muddy. And we were talking about that before. A lot of people…

Fiona: …got a bit dirty…

Steve: …Yeah, got a bit dirty. You’ve got to get some cuts and bruises…yeah, totally…and it’s so easy to sit there and work on usability on the website and think about strategy and plans, how many people want to go out there and make a cold call and knock on someone’s business door and ask them to become a customer and get rejected and walk out with your heart down, your face down in your boots, and you get hurt and rejected? That stuff’s where you really learn.

Fiona: You’ve got to be blooded – you’ve got to understand…

Steve: …totally….

Fiona: …understand how it is to be beaten up and get back up again.

Steve: And you know what I’m going to do as well, at the school? I’m going to do some things where I actually show people, live, like I’m going to make some cold calls live, in front of them, doing it for Rentoid, and showing them how I do it, live, and say look, I might get rejected here, but what will I learn after it?

And actually do some live events that, I’m not just talking about it, I’m doing this day-to-day, and I live in startup land, and I’m going to show them over the course the type of stuff that wins, the hard stuff that people don’t know about as well, and how you need to be able to cross that chasm where you’re prepared to be rejected, you know, the art of knowing how to be rejected and learn from it and move forward is a big part of it as well.

Fiona: Steve you are very brave, because this is the real nuts and bolts of startup land, it really is, it’s how to get past rejection, it’s how to deal with it, how to deal with disappointment, get back up and turn disappointment into success, I think that’s what good startups do. Good luck with it…

Steve: …thank you…

Fiona: …the first one coming up on November 7 and 8, and it’ll be a sell out, I’m sure.

Steve: Thank you.

Image: Flickr Ellen.W

Steve Sammartino, entrepreneur and founder/owner of Rentoid joins Fiona from time-to-time to talk about issues in Startup Land.

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