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Key principles of getting going (from The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki)

(picture courtesy of Nike)

THINK BIG. Set your sights high and strive for something grand. If youʼre going to change the world, you canʼt do it with milquetoast and boring products or services. Shoot for doing things at least ten times better than the status quo. When Jeff Bezos started Amazon.com, he didnʼt build a bookstore with a paltry 25,000 more titles than the 250,000-title brick-and-mortar bookstores. He went to 3,000,000 titles in an online bookstore.

FIND A FEW SOULMATES. History loves the notion of the sole innovator: Thomas Edison (light bulb), Steve Jobs (Macintosh), Henry Ford (Model T), Anita Roddick (The Body Shop), Richard Branson (Virgin Airlines). History is wrong. Successful companies are started, and made successful, by at least two, and usually more, soulmates. After the fact, one person may come to be recognized as “the innovator,” but it always takes a team of good people to make any venture work.

POLARIZE PEOPLE. When you create a product or service that some people love, donʼt be surprised when others hate you. Your goal is to catalyze passion—pro or anti. Donʼt be offended if people take issue with what youʼve done; the only result that should offend (and scare) you is lack of interest. Car design is a good example of the love-versus-hate reaction; consider the bifurcation of peopleʼs reactions to cars such as the Mini Cooper, Infiniti Fx 45, and Toyota Scion xB. People are either devoted fans or relentless critics, and thatʼs good.

DESIGN DIFFERENT. Depending on what management fad is hot, you might be tempted to believe that there is only one ideal way to design products and services. This isnʼt true. There is no single best way. Here are four different and valid approaches—and I am sure there are more.

HUNGRYPEOPLE'S PRINCIPLES

HungryPeople Thinks BIG. We want to start a conversation with everyone on the planet. We want to hear YOUR voice, we want to hear from YOU! YOU should talk to us!

HungryPeople is always looking for soulmates. Check out the profiles of those we've interviewed so far.

HungryPeople believes everyone has a GREAT IDEA. YOU can be the Next Big Thing. That's why we want to start a conversation with YOU. It's at the core of our philosophy that everyone is born with a gift. Everyone is born a genius! If YOU have something to say, we want to hear it!

HungryPeople is different. We feature both sides of the issue. We offer the best of both worlds. If YOU think you've failed in life, think again – millions before YOU have been there and lived to change the world. YOU can too!

Also check out our other post entitled Great Ideas for Starting Things (GIST).

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How To Name YOUR Website That Catches Attention

Back when I was in high school (that was 10 years ago!), the Internet was just new. But I had the foresight to look into my future and come up with possible names for websites that will sound cool (or so I thought they were cool). It amuses me to think that over 10 years have passed since then but the forces working today are somewhat the same. We may have Facebook, Twitter and Posterous now, but 10 years ago the Internet was already revolutionizing how we operate our businesses. And it still is.

As YOU can see in the names below, my last entry was hungrypeople dot com. I cannot remember what fascinated me about the name. But who would have thought that 10 years after, I would find this list while also reading Jonathan Fields' revolutionary book Career Renegade and got inspired to start my blog, right here, right now. And so I did. HungryPeople's birthday is October 4, 2009.

Again, it's kind of amusing to think of our blogs as our babies. But indeed they are. Like our babies at home or on Sims, we do tend to our blogs on a day to day basis. We enjoy writing our hearts' out and taking a peek now and then. We get overjoyed when people comment on the blog however negative (it means someone is actually reading it!). And yes, we try to edit as much as we can.

Blogging has become a way of life for most people. But as for me, I'm relatively new. My relationship to blogging has been on and off at best. I fear commitments. Something my friends would attest to. But hopefully, this time around with YOUR help I can build the HungryPeople blog to deliver something fresh, something unique and something compelling for YOU to read on and come back for.

Thank YOU for reading this far. YOU are free to take any of the names that YOU like. Just be sure to include me in the footnotes when YOU'RE building the site of YOUR dreams. As YOU can see with my example, it's never to late to blog.

Before I close, I'm actually going to talk about what the title above is all about. Picking HungryPeople was the best choice I guess. As YOU can see, aside from being on my list 10 years ago. In my readings, one of my favorites quotes came from Steve Jobs' speech during the 2005 Stanford Graduation and I never forgot how he ended it: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” HungryPeople is for anyone who is hungry for something in their lives – so the name is a match with a twist. But the clincher was having a short election on Facebook and HungryPeople won 2/3s of the vote. So there YOU are – the secret to naming a website that catches attention is to test possible names in YOUR community. They're the ones who's going to read it anyway. If it's good for them, it's good for everybody (or at least a majority).

Cool Names for Future Websites (circa 1998)

http://www.stupidmaniacs dot com

http://www.growlingmonkeys dot com

http://www.morons dot com

http://www.smellyshoes dot com – This is actually my favorite. =) Why? Because sometimes our shoes smell a bit but we still love putting it on anyway, am I right?

http://www.peoplewholovetofart dot com

http://www.peoplewholove2fart dot com

http://www.laughinghyenas dot com

http://www.laughinggods dot com

http://www.lifesavingbreath dot com

http://www.smellymouths dot com

http://www.badbreath dot com

http://www.anothercornysite dot com

http://www.coolcrazypeople dot net

http://www.jokinggorilla dot com

http://www.mockingbirds dot com

http://www.takeovers dot net

http://www.cornypeople dot com

http://www.hungrypeople dot com

What will YOU add to the list?  We'd love to hear it!!!

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The BLOG Manifesto

HungryPeople

Just BLOG It!

LET'S BLOG!

The BLOG Manifesto

People have a voice.

YOU have a VOICE.

We WANT to HEAR IT!

So Let's HEAR IT.

BLOG!

BLOG!

BLOG!

Power has been unleashed.

YOU have that power.

YOU can choose from hundreds of FREE blogging services out there.

(There's POSTEROUS, Blogger, WordPress, Typepad and a whole lot more).

It's time to HEAR YOUR side of the STORY.

We WANT to HEAR IT!

We know YOU feel the itch.

YOU want to write YOUR thoughts, YOUR ideas.

So go blog it!

One piece of advice – JUST DO IT!!!

We PROMISE YOU it's liberating.

And blogging is the new COOL.

Are YOU Ready?

JUST BLOG IT!

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Great Ideas for Starting Things

There's a very interesting section from Guy Kawasaki's book The Art of the Start and that's the concept of GIST – short for Great Ideas for Starting Things. It's a wonderful way to get ideas and YOUR business going. It's also a great way to start a movement (like HungryPeople).

GIST

[ GREAT IDEAS FOR STARTING THINGS ]

1 MAKE MEANING. The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning—to create a product or service that makes the world a better place. So your first task is to decide how you can make meaning.

2 MAKE MANTRA. Forget mission statements; theyʼre long, boring, and irrelevant. No one can ever remember them—much less implement them. Instead, take your meaning and make a mantra out of it. This will set your entire team on the right course.

3 GET GOING. Start creating and delivering your product or service. Think soldering irons, compilers, hammers, saws, and AutoCAD—whatever tools you use to build products and services. Donʼt focus on pitching, writing, and planning.

4 DEFINE YOUR BUSINESS MODEL. No matter what kind of organization youʼre starting, you have to figure out a way to make money. The greatest idea, technology, product, or service is short-lived without a sustainable business model.

5 WEAVE A MAT (MILESTONES, ASSUMPTIONS, AND TASKS). The final step is to compile three lists: (a) major milestones you need to meet; (b) assumptions that are built into your business model; and (c) tasks you need to accomplish to create an organization. This will enforce discipline and keep your organization on track when all hell breaks loose—and all hell will break loose.

HUNGRYPEOPLE'S GIST

HungryPeople is about conversations. In fact, we would LOVE to have a Conversation with YOU.

HungryPeople is for YOU! That's our mantra! At HungryPeople, there's always a “table” for YOU. You'd never go hungry when YOU'RE here.

HungryPeople is always ON 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

HungryPeople's Business Model is simple – it's FREE (read Chris Anderson's book entitled FREE). 

HungryPeople's MAT is simple: to start millions of conversations with YOU about stories, about people, about ideas, about life every single day.

Learn more on Guy Kawasaki's work at http://blog.guykawasaki.com/.

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Thank YOU, HUNGRYPEOPLE!

Dear HungryPeople,

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Vote for The HungryPeople Manifesto on ChangeThis!

Hi Hungry!

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