Servant of Chaos

Dodge Shows Startups the Power of Advertising

There is no doubt that Dodge and the team from Wieden + Kennedy have produced a great piece of advertising for the Dart. But as I was watching it … as I was listening to the sparce copy that was voiced with just the right amount of self-deprecation and assurance, I couldn’t help but think that it was describing the world of the startup entrepreneur.

Watch it – because it’s great. Then, play it again and listen with your eyes closed. Don’t think cars. Think startups.

What do you hear?

Start with a simple idea. Stop thinking. Start doing … Drink more coffee. Build a prototype. Mould it shape it. Hate it. Start over …

Now, despite the hype and energy around startups, I often wonder why they don’t take a small proportion of their often overblown valuations and invest in advertising. And I don’t mean advertising for themselves … I mean in brand building for the sector. Surely there are some grand stories to be told and some people to inspire.

If the car industry was the powerhouse innovator of the 20th Century economy, then surely we should look to the startup industry in the 21st. It’s about time we told some stories.

Did You Try and Fail? Then It’s Time to #flearn

At the recent FailCon conference in Sydney, Pollenizer co-founder Mick Liubinskas threw a challenge to the audience. “When it comes to startups, let’s redefine the language around failure”.

FailCon was a day-long event bringing startups, innovators, supporters and investors together to share stories and experiences. And while there was plenty of goodwill and intention from the folks in the audience, it wasn’t until Mick pulled out a live Google Document and started challenging the audience and putting names against action items that things started moving.a  Taking on the role of facilitator, he fired questions at the audience – what do we need to open up debate around failure and startups? How can we talk about success? How can we remove the stigma?

Here in Australia we not only have the “tall poppy syndrome” which aims to lop the head off anyone who becomes too successful – we also have what I call the “failure undertow” – where even a sniff of failure can drag your reputation deep into the depths of business obscurity. That leaves a very small area in which new entrepreneurs can navigate. And that, in turn, lowers our sense of reward and capacity for risk taking.

The folks in Silicon Valley have a completely different view of failure. In the startup capital of the world, entrepreneurs who have not survived a business failure are often considered amateurs. In fact, Dave McClure, founder of incubator 500 Startups considers his business a Failure Factory.

As Mick prowled the stage at FailCon waiting for audience input – a voice from the back of the room rang out. We were talking failure and we were talking learning. What if you combined them? What if we could talk about “FLEARNING”?

And it was done.

Over the last couple of weeks, Mick Liubinskas, myself and FailCon organiser, Josh Stinton have been putting our heads together to build a place to share our failures and the successes that follow. We have been talking up the concept of “flearning” and are now looking wider – for stories and experiences of failure that we can share with the wider Australian startup community. We’d love to have you involved.

Take a few minutes to check out FLEARN.ORG and let us get this conversation started. You know you want to get that story off your chest – and now’s your chance.