After weeks of doing everything from looking for paper and chasing printers to packing bags and shipping containers, we’re finally glad to announce that our LessConf swag is safely at the conference. A conference for web startups, LessConf is a run by the fine folks over at Less Everything, and we were delighted when they contacted us a few months back asking if we’d like to give away some swag to attendees.

Having agreed to ship them something to put in the goodie bags they were giving away for the first 100 hotel room bookings, we set about printing and packaging. We didn’t know the process would take us all over Colombo, we didn’t know it would involve everyone at Vesess and we really, really didn’t know how to make a bag by hand.

Now, we do. Thanks to the impending Sinhala and Tamil New Year, many local organisations were winding down this week and we thus ended up doing many of the little things ourselves. From folding and gluing bags to packing and labeling, the entire team got in on the fun, and leaving our laptops aside we rolled up our sleeves and got to work.

Here are some shots of the process.

Already at the conference? If you were a part of the lucky few to book the first 100 rooms at the Artmore Hotel, you’ll get something fun from CurdBee free of charge.

Happy LessConf!

One of the most common pitfalls for startups is to focus solely on technical superiority of their solution forgetting the requirements and changing nature of the customer. The following case study of Iridium confirms exactly this point with a mammoth price tag to the lose.

At $5.2-billion Iridium was one of the largest, boldest and audacious startup bets ever made. Conceived in 1987 by Motorola and spun out in 1990 as a separate company, Iridium planned to build a mobile telephone system that would work anywhere on earth.

But nine months after the first call was made in 1998, Iridium was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It crashed back down to earth as one of the largest startup failures on record. What went wrong?

No Business Plan Survives First Contact With A Customer – The 5.2 billion dollar mistake.

Three seemingly simple but important advices for Startups.

Ask yourself: if you started over today, would you build the same product? If not, consider significant changes to what you are building. The popular word for this today is “pivoting” and I think it is apropos. You aren’t throwing away what you’ve learned or the good things you’ve built. You are keeping your strong leg grounded and adjusting your weak leg to move in a new direction.

Why Joost Failed, How Foursquare Surpassed the Competition, and Other Lessons for Startups

Trent Reznor of NIN, shared some tips on how a lesser known artist could get established and become noted. His thoughts are applicable to any new entrant whose trying to build a name in their respective industry.

Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters.

To clarify:
Parter with a TopSpin or similar or build your own website, but what you NEED to do is this – give your music away as high-quality DRM-free MP3s. Collect people’s email info in exchange (which means having the infrastructure to do so) and start building your database of potential customers. Then, offer a variety of premium packages for sale and make them limited editions / scarce goods. Base the price and amount available on what you think you can sell. Make the packages special – make them by hand, sign them, make them unique, make them something YOU would want to have as a fan. Make a premium download available that includes high-resolution versions (for sale at a reasonable price) and include the download as something immediately available with any physical purchase. Sell T-shirts. Sell buttons, posters… whatever.

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