This probably sounds quaint, but once upon a time, tech startups were called “startups.” Occasionally, venture capitalists called them “portfolio companies,” or customers called them “tech companies,” but “startup” was the main term.In 2013, though, startups began their Animorphs journey.

What animal is your Startup?

Zebra businesses have roots in their leaders’ personal experiences and visions.  Zebras fuse profit and purpose, shy away from venture funding and collaborate. Zebra founders’ connection to their companies means they strive for capital efficiency and tend to avoid trading equity for venture funding.Examples: Baremetrics, Zapier

THE ZEBRA

Camels can survive in the “desert” of volatile, cash-strapped markets.Camels charge for the value they create from the get-go. Survival, rather than fast growth, is the priority.Examples: Qualtrics, GrubHub, Zoom

The Camel

A gazelle is a company that had revenue of at least $1 million and then doubled its revenue in four years. Its growing by 20 per cent each year.It was what unicorns used to be called before the term unicorn was coined.Examples: Facebook, Apple, and Amazon would all have been initially seen as gazelles.

THE GAZELLE

Cockroach companies aren’t glamorous, aspirational, or exciting. But they are great at surviving.When you consider that more than 90% of entrepreneurial businesses tend to fail, aspiring to cockroach survival mode isn’t too bad. They’re the mainstay of the economy.Cockroaches ideally aim for profitability right from the start and can slow down their pace if adversity hits. Examples: GitHub, Facebook and Google were once cockroach startups and became unicorns only after building a solid business, cockroach style.

Cockroach

Rhino startups aim to be both big and profitable. Rhinos as companies that have a valuation of $1bn on a price-to-earnings multiple, not on a revenue multiple. Rhinos are far rarer than unicorns.Examples: Apple, Facebook, Google

Rhino

Pigs are startups that take advantage of the fact that it has become relatively cheap and easy to make a web product. You can get the development work done at a modest price and even raise some initial capital.Pigs aren’t building the company for long-term world domination—they’re aiming to sell it to a big corporate or a competitor at the right moment.Apple and Google regularly shop for tasty pork among companies like this.Examples: Snapchat buying Looksery. Facebook buying Masquerade

A bear is a solitary, awkward creature that values its independence and therefore doesn’t want to take VC money. The founders of these companies choose the bootstrapping route, which makes life harder for them. But if it pays off, they end up rich AND in control of their companies.Examples:Tableau Software, Go-Pro, Mail chimp

Phoenixes are companies that last more than a hundred years because they rise, fall, and then rise again. Companies that have managed to reinvent themselves as a third or fourth-generation youngster takes the helm.Examples: Fiat, Otto Bock, GM

Phoenix

"Unicorn" is the term used in the venture capital industry to describe a startup company with a valuation of over $ 1 billion.Example: CRED, Groww

Unicorn

White elephant startups symbolise huge projects without a deeper economic meaning. A real example is a construction project that happens only for a major event such as sports events.

The White Elephant

These ideas have been compiled to the simplest of understanding with relevant images and Examples of Companies that fit into the respective category of Animal Startup.

What Animal is your Startup?

If you cling to life, you'll lose it. If you're ready to lose life, you'll gain it. A bit christiany, wouldn't you say? :))A capacity for freedom is a natural feature.  However, the concept of freedom changes through times. Human thought is responsive to actual reality. So history  can be seen as the development of ideas about freedom.History is the progress and consciousness for freedom.I'm free because I can act on my desires. Or better yet, I'm free because I give up on them. It becomes a freedom of the pure self. But it becomes too abstract and you cant commit to any activity.

What is Hegel's freedom?

You need a middle ground mediated by society, so that you reflect your desires in society. Hegel looks at each civilization and the concept of freedom that it embodies.The Reformation seen as  inner spiritual freedom, inner fate, not through external authority.state-individualThere's a codependent relation between state and individual. Most of our desires are the result of the world we live in (We don't 'need' Pepsi, but you learn to need it.)I can't craft my own identity without the others around me. A metaphisycally bankrupt idea.

No history without society

Original history - is done by the person at the time happening. The likes of Herodotus and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides">Thucydides</a>.Reflective history - is like a narrative of the past from the present which also want to draw a moral lesson from it.Philosophical history - there is more to history than dates and sad stories of war. There's progress. Hegel wants to see progress.The end of history - is about a conceptual closure (regressive move, going backwards, dystopian world, Handmaiden tale vibes).

Types of histories

Listen to In Our Time: Philosophy on Spotify. 

In Our Time: Philosophy

Content creation is the act of creating content that is relative to the career or job that you currently perform. It could be done in many different ways for instance, making a Youtube Channel, blogging or creating content in many other ways. No matter how you decide to create content, here are 3 reasons why creating content is very important.

What Is Content Creation

Content creation remains one of the most natural and beneficial ways to develop and accuire new skills in an increasingly distressed economy. You learn some great skills that are extremely beneficial in the act of content creation for instance <ol><li>Writing/Copywriting </li></ol><ul><li> Writing makes you a better thinker The quality of words defines the quality of thoguht. </li></ul>2. Video content creation: Creatign video content literally pushed you to become a better, more confident, more assertive version of yourself. Which is highly respected by many people

Content Creation Is A Self Development Took 

One great thing about Content Creation is that people know you before they meet you By creating content you show your expertise in your industry. You show people that you know your stuff and you are passionate about what you do.Your network will serve as a safety net just in case something unpredictable happens

Content Creation Is A Networking Tool

By creating digital content you are acumiling career capital which is rare and valuable skills that can be cashed in to secure your dream job on your own terms

A personal brand could be leveraged from multiple different angles <ol><li> It can be used to sell your services and products </li><li>it can help you to enforce the brand of the company you are working for </li><li>it opens doors to affiliate marketing </li></ol>

Creating Content Could Turn Into An Income Stream 

Do you know an easy way to make my day is if you take 3 seconds from your day and subscribe to my YouTube Channel. It would mean the world to me, as it has always been my dream to get 100 subscribers on YouTube, and we can get there https://youtube.com/channel/UCqoq02AovQaeAPWWeIgKRIw

Please Help Make My Day!

Please help make my day by subscribing to my channel https://youtube.com/channel/UCqoq02AovQaeAPWWeIgKRIw

The article was originally posted on Medium. *** It’s April 2020, and everyone seems to be living online.

3 reasons why you should be a content creator.

Branding is a potential marketing rathole for startups, particularly early-stage ones. Startups who prioritise branding are putting the cart before the horse. Focus should be on product and business first - the real work to prove product-market-fit.Branding comes after PMF. "You don’t need a brand before you have PMF."Even when branding makes sense, a startup usually focuses on the wrong elements, eg: the logo instead of the targeting. Targeting matters, the value prop matters, positioning matters. The visual identity and brand values not so much.

The Branding Mirage for Startups

Do want to build a brand? Go sell some software. Want to improve your brand perception? Go sell some software. Want to have a distinctive brand visual territory? Go sell some software.

Branding may seem a hairy topic but it can be broken down into: <ul><li>Brand targeting: Who Do We Sell To?</li><li>Brand promise: Why Do They Buy From Our Company?</li><li>Brand positioning: Why Do They Buy Our Product?</li><li>Brand identity: Do We Look Like Us?</li><li>Brand values: What Do We Stand For?</li><li>Brand voice: Do We Sound Like Us?</li></ul>

6 elements of Branding

This is brandspeak for figuring out who you’re selling to.  Think STP (segment, target, position).<ul><li>Figure out a mechanism to segment the market — e.g., by company size, by vertical industry, by adjacent systems</li><li>Target one or more of those segments. For startups, fewer is better.</li><li>Position your product to those target segments.</li></ul>

Brand Targeting for Startups

The high-level expression of why someone should buy from your company, often more simply known as the value proposition. For tech startups they tend to fall into a few patterns:<ul><li>We are you (e.g., Mosaic, we built it for ourselves at Palantir).</li><li>We fixed it. We took the last-generation leader and made it better (e.g., Cube to Adaptive, Pigment to Anaplan)</li><li>We rebuilt it.  We run on the modern stack with modern technology (e.g., OnPlan to Vena)</li><li>We verticalized it (e.g., Plannuh for marketing, Place for SaaS)</li></ul>

Brand promises for Startups

Positioning comes down to answering one of two questions:<ol><li>Why buy one? (Benefit oriented)</li><li>Why buy yours? (Differentiation oriented)</li></ol>Startups who are alone in defining their category need to focus on the first question. Those in crowded categories (either a new market with several nascent entrants or a more developed category with the usual suspects), the emphasis needs to be on why buy mine.

Brand Positioning for Startups

Focusing on the logo and brand values before having a business is like putting the cart before the horse.

Products & Innovation 

Dave Kellog on Startup Branding

Price is the most delicate element of the marketing mix, and much thought goes into setting prices to nudge us towards spending more.There’s one particularly cunning style of pricing strategy that marketers use to urge you to change your choice from one choice to a costlier or more profitable one.It is called the “Decoy Effect.”

The decoy effect: how you are influenced to choose without really knowing it

Imagine you are in a movie house and now are searching for a cola drink. You have got two options. The cheapest is at Rs 200/-for 200 ml.The pricier at Rs 400 for 450 ml.Which one you select will rely upon some assessment of their relative value for money.It is not immediately apparent, though, that the costlier option is the best value. It does have over twice the amount, but what are they worth?Now consider the above choice in light of the 3rd option of Rs 300 for 300 ml.

Relative value for money.

The decoy effect is defined as the phenomenon whereby consumers change their preferences between two options when presented with a third option — the “decoy.”

Decoy Effect

When consumers have many alternatives, they often experience “choice overload.” In an endeavour to cut back on this anxiety, consumers tend to simplify the method by selecting only a pair of criteria (say price and quantity) to see the simplest value for money.Through manipulating these key choice attributes, the decoy steers you in a very particular direction while supplying you with the sensation that you are making a rational, informed choice.

How do decoys work?

The decoy effect can cause us to spend and consume more than we’d like. When a decoy option is present, we tend to make decisions based less on which option will suit our purposes and more on what seems like the most advantageous choice.

Individual effects

Decoys are a commonly used tool by businesses and corporations to “nudge” us into buying more quickly than we’d like.

Systemic effects

ven though we believe that we make all of our decisions consciously and deliberately, in reality, we are often unaware of things that have influenced our choices or how they need to affect us.Decoys justify our choice.When people make decisions, their goal isn’t to select the right option. Instead, the goal is to justify the result of a choice they’ve already made.Decoys serve to de-stress the decision-making process in additional ways than simply providing a nice-sounding explanation — they also settle the anxiety of having too many options to decide on.

Decoys work subconsciously.

The decoy effect is simplest when there are only three options in play: target, competitor, and decoy. Whether you’re out shopping, or you’re evaluating political candidates, try and notice when things take place in groups of three — there could also be a decoy within the mix.

Beware of sets of three.

Your thinking style plays a role in how likely you’re to be laid low by the decoy effect. One study, which involved over 600 participants, found that the people most affected by a decoy were those who relied on intuitive reasoning.

Don’t trust your gut.

Apple unveiled its new iPod priced16GB for $229. 32GB for $299. and 64GB for $399.In other words, double the storage for a further $70; you also get more features.However, if you choose to double the capacity (32GB to 64GB), you pay a further $100, but you don’t get extra features. Therefore, you may conclude that the 32GB version offers the most effective value for money.So, only some would buy the 16GB version and even fewer would choose the 64GB version.But, the very fact is, the 16GB and the 64GB versions are the decoys to make the 32GB version more appealing and also the best choice.

How Apple uses the decoy effect

Talks about the one of the most Important Marketing Weapon of the industry.

There’s one particularly cunning style of pricing strategy that marketers use to urge you to change your choice from one choice to a costlier or more profitable one. Imagine you are in a movie house…

What Animal is your Startup?

In Our Time: Philosophy

3 reasons why you should be a content creator.

Dave Kellog on Startup Branding

The decoy effect: how you are influenced to choose without really knowing it

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