When Brands Differentiate – A View on Bags, Bag Brands, and Brand Differentiation

One of the topics I enjoy researching is brand differentiation. It’s amazing to see how much creativity is put into helping brands stand out amongst their competitors. In order to illustrate the point, the podcast below explores the differences between messenger bags and the rest of the industry, and how four brands have managed to carve out a name for themselves amidst tons of international competition.

One point I’d like to add is that the purpose of this podcast is merely to illustrate how the companies have differentiated between themselves amidst of sea of competitors, and highlighting how they’ve implemented this differentiation across the company and branding.

This podcast highlights the need for differentiation if you want to enter a crowded and established market.

The companies I talk about during the podcast are:
missionworkshop.com/about/
info.rickshawbags.com/the-rickshaw-story
www.timbuk2.com/content/about-people.html
www.chromeindustries.com/us/en/manifesto

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Seedcamp Podcast, Episode 1: What We Look For In Founders

Exciting news. We’re podcasting!

Join us as we explore various topics throughout the world of Startups and Early-stage Investment.

During each episode we’ll speak with members of the Seedcamp family to hear their views; including the Seedcamp team, our Investors, Mentors, and Startups.

We begin with our ‘Take On’ series. In this first episode, Seedcamp Partners Reshma & Carlos discuss the qualities we look for in startup Founders.

  • how important is it to be a good relationship builder?
  • do jerks make good startup founders?
  • does having a positive outlook create more opportunity?
  • is integrity important?
  • will founders who are able to inspire others build a stronger team?

If the above player doesn’t work for you, you can also listen directly from our Soundcloud page.

Subscribe on iTunes or by pointing your podcast player to the link below…

http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:126198189/sounds.rss

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Deciphering Crowdfunding For Startups

One of the options that founders are reminded of more and more above and beyond VC and Angel funding is Crowdfunding via online platforms such as Kickstarter, AngelList, and Seedrs, to name a few. However, these platforms are not all the same and in this post we’ll cover how they differ as well as what makes them unique.
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To help better categorize the use cases for the different types of crowdfunding platforms, let’s split them into two:
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1) Cash for Product Pre-Orders – Kickstarter, IndieGogo, etc.
2) Cash for Equity – AngelList (USA), Seedrs (UK), Crowdcube (UK), etc.
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Start Smart: Essential tips for the next A-Team

Building a strong team early in your company’s life-cycle is one of the key attributes that pre-disposes your company to success and to gathering investor interest.

In this presentation, I cover some of the attributes that makes an A-Team compelling.

The Slideshare Slides for this presentation can be found here –

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