skyrkt

[skyrkt]

MVB: Branding for Startups

Startups typically:

Have smaller budgets

Focus more on R&D for their product than look and feel

Tend to equate “brand” with “aesthetics”

Brand tends to get neglected and is seen as an unaffordable luxury.

So how do you commercialize and go to market with a brand that is worthy of your amazing product?

We have all heard of MVP

The s*!t without which the product would not fly

Has the minimum amount of features that will drive adoption

So what is MVB?

Minimum Viable Brand. Much like the way you establish the Minimum Viable Product for your app or service, you should do the same for your brand.

The minimum branding exercise will drive adoption

The foundation for your brand – your company – to grow in to

Achieving MVB

A brand will always evolve, but great brands don't change fundamentally. So, it's imperative to get the important stuff right. How? 

Explore. Ask the right questions.

What is your vision? You must dig deep to uncover your story and the values at the heart of your brand.

Who are your target audiences? By understanding their thoughts and behaviour, you can determine how you will connect with them.

What stage are we currently at? A product audit will provide you with a map of your current activities and what you can do to get ahead of the game. 

Who are the competition? A competitive analysis tells you who the key players are and what you're up against, allowing you to aggregate and apply all the aforementioned information for identifying opportunities. 

Now, you will be equipped to find a place for yourself in the world and refine those aspects that set you apart

Define. Brand Positioning.

The Brand DNA. The jumping-off point for the way you position everything you do from now on. And yes, everything should grow out of this document. It must be good. It provides the roots for your tree. Here, you will lay the foundation for your vision and promise. Your tone and brand personality will define a unique way of communicating with your audience. This will spark a connection and determine how your customers view you. 

MVB will define how to go about creating your visual and verbal identity: the look, feel & voice.

Consider:

Wordmark

Symbol (if you want one)

Taglines and language

A Brand Ecosystem (how all of your elements work together in harmony, to create a consistent experience)

Lean guidelines and optimization for all channels of communication

Boom. You are all set to take the market by storm – your product better be worthy of your brand!

[skyrkt]

New site launch! Sympli: How did they do it?

We are delighted to announce the launch of a new client project – White House Design’s new website, Sympli, is now live!

About the Owners Sympli has been built from the ground up, by mother and daughter team, Jan and Abbey Stimpson. Since 1977, Jan has been involved in the fashion and design industry, at which time she quit her job to pursue her real passion for fashion and design: starting her own brand. Her first label was created in 1980 and she ranks at an impressive no. 4 on W100’s list of top female entrepreneurs.

Engagement The Mother and Daughter team shared their values, on which the foundation of the label was born. However, when Abby approached us, we found the brand was in flux. Over the past 13 years the company had matured from a mother and daughter operation to a full-scale clothing manufacturer, however the company’s communications didn’t reflect the depth of their values and experience. Abbey and Jan agreed that there was room to clarify their message and to better communicate their brand values. We engaged in a brand positioning exercise, to delve deeply into Sympli and their clientele – a persona we began to identify with as the “Sympli woman”. Over the course of many weeks, we met with the team, discussed their vision for the company and began to refine their voice. We spent a lot of time at Sympli’s Headquarters in order to become fully immersed in their culture and day-to-day operations. With this deep understanding of their story and a multitude of insights, we set about refining the language and key characteristics that would position Sympli in a way that distinctly reflected their purpose.

Our solution became Sympli’s Brand Manifesto –  a clear guide to the company’s vision, mission and values as well as the tone, voice and aesthetic applications of the Sympli brand. Conversation around website entirely changed. Now, we were talking about providing value and solving problems for their audience, as opposed to focusing on the brand look and feel. With B2B at its core we needed a quick and enticing experience for retailers to browse their lines. Since they have hundreds of retailers across North America, each carrying a different line, we implemented a real-time map functionality, allowing them to update listings on the fly every week and automating co-ordinates based on store address.

About Sympli

“Sympli” provides flattering clothing for tasteful and beautiful women with varying body shapes, tastes and styles. They launched in 2001, from that time, Jan and Abbey worked very hard to create luxurious products to fit “every-body” and to ensure they were able to resonate positively within the local community. The hand-made Sympli line has been uniquely tailored by an understanding of women’s naturally varying body-shapes and of the un-flexible nature of the fashion industry’s current offerings. The company is committed to taking a holistic approach to their culture, by cultivating a business that is in support of local suppliers, hiring locally and “giving back” through their Looking Glass Foundation.

Would it surprise you to know that all of the models on the website are friends and family of the company? Their vision for this was to eliminate the stereotypical idealism of unrealistic fashion-models.

Conclusion “Imagine a world where positive self-esteem was a given and where beauty was a source of confidence, rather than distress.  Where perceptions of what’s fashionable have changed and fashion chooses to embrace ‘imperfections’ and natural beauty. Sympli – empowering women to express their individual beauty though fashion without limitations.” – Jan Stimpson, Sympli Founder.

Full story: Sympli

[skyrkt]

Crowdfund matchmaking: Which one suits you?

Crowdfunding platforms have been designed with specific company goals in mind. To help you find funding from the crowd, we’ve done a high-level comparison of five of the most popular channels, with a smaller overview of some niche options:

1. Kickstarter

Pros: Most recognised | Highest traffic | High funding success Cons: Approval Process | All-or-nothing funding | North America and UK only Funding Method: Reward-based Average Funding per Campaign: $5,000 Suitable for: Art | Music | Games | Design | Technology Cost: 5% of funds raised | Transaction fees: 3-5%

2. Indiegogo

Pros: No application process | High flexibility for projects type Cons: More expensive if you do not hit goal Funding Method: Donation-based Average funding per campaign: $3,700 Suitable for: Music | Hobbyists | Personal Finance | Charities Cost: All-or-nothing: 4% | Flexible funding: 4% | Complete campaign: 4% | Incomplete campaign: 9% | Transaction fees: 3%

3. Crowdfunder

Pros: CROWDFUNDx connects local investors and entrepreneurs | Voting system validates top local companies both offline and online Cons: Less traffic than its counterparts | USA only Funding Method: Debt, Investment and Donation-based Most Funded example: $7,200,000 Monster Digital Suitable for: Tech | Small Biz | Social Enterprise | Film Cost: All-or-Nothing: 5% | Transaction fee: 1.9-5%

4. RocketHub

Pros: Offers an additional Success School for promotion, marketing and partner collaboration Cons: Less traffic | Lower percentage of successful campaigns (11%) Funding Method: Donation-Based Average Funding per campaign: $7,762 Suitable for: Art | Science | Business | Social Cost: Complete campaign: 4% | Incomplete campaign: 8% | Transaction Fees: 4%

5. AngelList

Pros: Connects tech start-ups to early-stage investors and uses algorithms to rank company quality Cons: Higher Cost | Requires $100,000 already attained from an accredited investor Average Funding per campaign: $3.8m Funding Method: Equity Investment Suitable for: Tech startups Cost: SecondMarket charges $10,000 for handling legal documentation and $250 per deal

For more specific, or niche-market funding goals, perhaps one of the following options may be more appropriate:

appbackr Who? A niche community for mobile app development Suitable for: Mobile App developers Funding Method: Donation-based

Crowdrise Who? Specifically for charities and causes, their unique point system establishes charitable impact of organization Suitable for: Causes | Charity Funding Method: Donation-based

Invested.in Who? A “white label” software provider Suitable for: Niche crowdfunding efforts who want to create their own community Funding Method: Donation-based

Quirky Who? They help to bring inventions to fruition Suitable for: Inventors Funding Method: Donation-based

Somolend Who? Partners with banks for loans and you can bring on family members or friends Suitable for: Small business with existing operations and revenue (in the US) Funding Method: Debt-based

Discover more about JOBs Act and funding options

References

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chancebarnett/2013/05/08/top-10-crowdfunding-sites-for-fundraising/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/katetaylor/2013/08/06/6-top-crowdfunding-websites-which-one-is-right-for-your-project/

http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2013/04/24/angellist-commits-to-crowdfunding/

http://crowdfunding.cmf-fmc.ca/facts_and_stats

https://www.kickstarter.com

https://medium.com/on-startups/2a48bc6ffd57

http://crowdsunite.com/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chancebarnett/2013/09/09/donation-based-crowdfunding-sites-kickstarter-vs-indiegogo/

[skyrkt]

The New Capital Funding Method for Entrepreneurs

At best, startup funding can be a pain to attract. Especially if there is a lack of trade history. The process can be lengthy, time-consuming and even disappointing :(

However... :)

Recent changes in United States legislation mean that now there is another way to recruit backers for your grand idea.

Thanks to The JOBS Act in 2013, there have been two large movements which have allowed an entirely new Capital Funding class to emerge. Title II of the JOBS Act (filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission) lifted an 80-year ban on public advertising for investment purposes. In conjunction with this, Title III of the JOBS Act now allows non-accredited investors to contribute to funding.

The title is expected to not only bring more investors into the market, but to engage a higher percentage of the overall accredited investor market, too. This is, in part, due to the fact that the best crowdfunding rounds of investment can be “led” by an angel, angel group or a seed stage fund. This carves the way for non-accredited investors to decide which company warrants their investment. For companies, this means that they can use Internet crowdfunding to promote their ideas and gather the capital required to expand from a larger pool of investors than ever before.

But wait... Don’t be fooled by the seemingly simple doorway which has opened up – a successful campaign still requires full commitment to advance planning, maintenance and constant involvement.

Without dedication, a campaign can easily fall flat, which has the potential to damage relationships with current and future investors – definitely something we do not want!

Five critical considerations before diving in:

Protect your personal wealth – In the US, consider creating an LLC

Provide an incentive – Create quality deals for the community to invest in

Find support before you launch – You have a limited time period allocated to a live campaign

Keep investors happy – Deeply engage in an active investor base

Finding investment becomes harder after a failed campaign – Think ahead and plan well!

A selection of platforms to get you started:

You can choose from many options, some are more specialised than others and should therefore be considered holistically when choosing a good fit.

Depending on the company, an option could be to stick to a niche – this may help you stand-out.

AngelList appbackr CircleUp Crowdfunder Crowdhoster Crowdrise Fundrazr Indiegogo Invested.in Kickstarter Pave Quirky Rockethub SoMoLend Selfstarter Upstart

Not Investment-ready?

If you’re not yet investment-ready yet, there are other initiatives to help carve a stronger offering. Consider initiatives such as CROWDFUNDX, which offers a reward-based funding tool to gain early support and to begin building a community.

Inspiration

Finally, for your inspirational purposes, here is a link to one of the world’s most successful Crowdfunding campaigns so far, with over $10 million raised!

References

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/229847

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303932504579252402009731252

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/4352816-crowdfunding-could-play-key-role-in-startup-financing-expert-says/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chancebarnett/2013/07/19/sec-finally-moves-on-equity-crowdfunding-phase-1/

http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/23/crowdfunding-with-jobs-act-title-ii-the-web-will-eat-financing-and-investing/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-23/sec-to-vote-on-crowdfunding-plan-as-white-advances-jobs-act-1-.html

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/10/23/crowdfunding-ipo-sec-jobs-act/3169395/

https://blogs.law.harvard.edu/corpgov/2013/12/06/jobs-act-title-iii-crowdfunding-moves-closer-to-reality/

http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2013/2013-124-item1.htm

[skyrkt]

6 Essential Questions to help define your Product Elevator Pitch

For entrepreneurs who want to bring a product to the online market, Skyrocket is a digital agency that designs and builds beautiful and engaging web applications that elevate the customer experience. – Skyrocket (Services) Elevator Pitch

At Skyrocket we are in the business of marrying design and technology to develop amazing web products. If you’re an entrepreneur with a vision for a product or an online business, you know the value of a great pitch. But even for the initiated, prepping an Elevator Pitch for your product may prove to be a challenge that tests the very mettle of your product idea.

Done well, the pitch communicates the value of the product or service, but says nothing about how it will be made. In essence, the pitch illuminates why this product or service will be loved. It defines why it matters. When the pitch is focused on the value it creates, it serves as the North Star: it guides the thinking and actions about the product/service direction and creates alignment around a product vision; alignment that is essential to everyone who has a role to play in bringing the product to life.

Ready to get started? Here are 6 essential questions that will help you define the Elevator Pitch for your product or service:

1. Who is this for?

Easy if you know, more complicated if you want to cast a wide net, or if you have multiple targets. If you fall in the latter group, avoid the temptation to say it’s for everyone. Is it everyone who makes music? Is it everyone who can’t remember where they put their car keys? Is it for people who want a premium movie-going experience? Get specific around your target, and if you have more than one, write them all down then prioritize the list so that your primary target is on the top. You benefit from defining a primary target so that you can focus your efforts and allocate resources appropriately.

2. What do they need?

Imagine how the product fits into your customer’s day-to-day experience and how it’s going to make a difference. True value is knowing your product or service solves a customer problem. As Guy Kawasaki infamously said in the Art of the Start: what’s the bleeding from the neck problem you’re trying to solve? If the product solves problems, it follows that the value will be baked in to the product vision. Value begins with understanding the end user/customer and solving their urgent and apparent needs.

3. What is the Product Name?

At this point, you may or may not have settled on a product name. If the product is entirely new, be sure to secure the domain as soon as possible. And don’t despair if the perfect domain is not available, there are plenty of creative workarounds (did I hear Skyrkt?) that can work for your brand. If the product is a follow-on offering, you have the option of going with a brand-name continuation or a brand-name change. (Contact us to learn more about brand architecture).

4. What is the Product Category?

If you already have your product vision or lean canvas worked out, the product category statement can be ported in from this. If you don’t have a product vision in place, head over to the the lean canvas to get started. Just keep in mind that consumers, retailers, investors and industry associations may each have a unique way of defining the product category. So while your primary pitch may accommodate the consumer, you should also take note of the different category statements required for different audiences and tweak your pitch when needed.

5. What is the #1 key benefit?

This is the Unique Value Proposition from the lean canvas. That is a single, clear compelling message that states why your product is different and worth paying attention to. You already know that markets are incredibly crowded and competitive and that most products/product launches fail. But what you may not know is how hard it is to convince customers to try out your product or service. Define the benefit and avoid the trap of imagining that the benefit is so obvious that everyone will get it once the product is built.  

6. Who is your #1 competitor? How is this different from them?

You may choose to include or exclude this in your final pitch statement, but not knowing the competition is not an option. You need to know how your product or service distinguishes itself from market competitors. And if you are innovating and think you’re in a category of one, make sure you’ve done your due diligence and searched the web and startup indexes for peer companies or products that are similar to your own.

Once you’ve got this down, you’re ready to stitch together your pitch statement:

For: (target customer), who: (statement of need) the: (product name) is a: (product category) that: (benefit) unlike: (primary competition, unique qualifier)

Here's an example to start you off:

For online retailers who want to better engage their audiences the Skyrocket user experience methodology is a web development process that places the customer first unlike “out of the box” e-commerce solutions.

 Give it a go, and let us know how you made out!

[skyrkt]

Discover a Revolution in Live Events: PreShow on Kickstarter

PreShow is a web application for creating live events – a powerful tool designed to revolutionize the space of show production. Not only that, but they are one of our favourite clients!

PreShow takes the show development process, dominated by physical scripts, and radically improves it. By centralizing and linking creative content with production details, PreShow provides show creators with one central workplace from which they can overcome the three chronic problems facing show creation:

Limited Resources - limited funding, shrinking resources

Spiralling Technology - mixed file formats, mountain of information

Decentralized Workspace - juggling multiple projects in a decentralized environment

For this development, the product needed to go through the Skyrocket user experience and branding process. We took the general idea and a pre-existing, back-end technology and with these, we conducted extensive persona development and explored use-cases which were necessary to understand the user flow for target industry verticals. By finding the greatest common denominator amongst all of the personas interfacing with PreShow, we cracked the complexity of the application and were able to distill it into a beautiful and self-evident interface.

In the final product, the user experience is simple and intuitive; the layers of complexity are left up to users to discover. Even the brand we developed together – PreShow – was established to communicate their positioning and intimate understanding of show production.

Now… They’re ready to launch! With one slight hitch… James Pollard, PreShow CEO, was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer about the same time the project began. For this reason, there is a sense of urgency for the company. PreShow has received approval for a significant amount of funding from the Canada Media Fund, which will allow the project to succeed. However, this is contingent on the basis that they are able to raise their own portion of funding: $59,000. For this, they have set up a Kickstarter campaign.

For as little as $10, you can contribute to the launch and receive the access code to try out the software yourself – for a little more there's some tea and cookies in it for you! At the time of posting, the Campaign has 16 days to go, so if you wish to support the launch, or check on the progress, you can do so here.

We loved our engagement with PreShow and James is a great guy. Everyone at Skyrocket would really enjoy seeing this project get launched.

[skyrkt]

University of Warwick Launches IGGY on Mobile

We are excited to be working with IGGY, a UK-based educational social network for the University of Warwick. Skyrocket’s mantra of “Design for Tomorrow” is exemplified in this institution as they focus on helping young people between the ages of 13 to 18 get access to great resources and top academics. The service allows them to create their own profiles, make friends and collaborate with high-achieving students around the world (https://www.iggy.net/about).

IGGY’s users had requested access to the comprehensive site on their mobile devices. Given the huge shift to mobile this came as no surprise. With the help of IGGY’s IT team at Warwick, our User Experience designers were given invaluable insights for identifying the different personas and use cases that would interact through IGGY Mobile. This allowed us to truly understand the user requirements and tailor the design for the mobile experience accordingly. We spent a lot of time engulfed in the content, which led to a clear definition of information hierarchy for mobile. It was quite a task to design the best version of the desktop site; the “Knowledge” section in particular proved challenging because of the variation of content: media types, tables and alignments which needed rendering into one unified template. Using Mobify technology (www.mobify.com), we were able to transition their desktop experience into a mobile-friendly interface, while maintaining URL consistency across the site and ensuring high performance across a multitude of devices.

The final outcome of the mobile site has proved to be another facet contributing to the ongoing success of IGGY. Experience the new mobile site by going to iggy.net on your smartphone or tablet.

For IGGY, this is an exciting time, having just earned the prestigious Bett Award in the category of ICT Tools in Teaching and Learning (https://www.iggy.net/news_events/news/article/we-are-a-bett-award-winner). This is a big (and well-deserved) achievement for the University of Warwick and a great example for the education sector. The award demonstrates IGGY’s comprehensive understanding of students’ needs and their successful innovative solution to addressing those needs with this platform. Congratulations, IGGY!

[skyrkt]

LightSpeed vs. Shopify vs. Square

Seamless payment processing for commerce in today’s mobile-tech dominated environment is extremely important. How do you know which one is suitable for your business needs when there are so many options to choose from?

We have reviewed three of the strongest players in the industry, and allow leave you to determine which one is most suitable for your company.

LightSpeed offers retailers a front-counter POS system and back-office management application for Mac. In July 2013, it shifted to a fully-integrated system complete with a customized e-commerce platform and a cloud-based POS system for iPad and mobile.

Shopify provides the tools required for any business to set up and customize their own e-commerce store. It diversified into a complete POS application in August 2013 and in January 2014, the POS system became compatible with the iPhone.

Square is a mobile payment gateway for iPad, iPhone and Android. First to market with a POS system based in the cloud, the software can be synchronized across devices and is used for accepting credit card payments in the offline environment.

Industry Segments and Adoption

LightSpeed has focused in on medium-sized companies and retailers for whom their “bricks-and-mortar” presence is the foundation of the business. Its users usually have a full, in-store setup and take a “continuing the conversation” standpoint to e-commerce service integration. Its consumer base is slowly broadening to include larger chains and brands such as Adidas (for its pop-up stores). Having acquired 7,000 retailers in the past year, it is experiencing rapid growth.

Shopify is known for its ease of use and you can have a cookie-cutter online store up and running quite easily, with add-ons to handle very specific needs. It has a diverse range of plug-ins, from web design customization to changing the shipping options and tax rates. Shopify has traditionally focused on (but not been limited to) small-scale e-tailers and has more recently diversified into the live retail market within the last year with the release of its own POS and mobile-commerce solution.

Square has rapidly overtaken its peers for volume of annual payments with the assistance of $200m investment and a partnership with Starbucks. In 2013, it reportedly processed an incredible $20 billion in transactions. It can be tailored to any type of business, from lemonade stands to grocery stores. Its market segments include both retailers and the general public, meaning the market is considerably more broad than that of its POS counterparts.

Ease of implementation

LightSpeed’s offering of “LightSpeed Pro” requires some advance planning to set up, install and back-up, as it isn’t cloud-based–yet. However, it does have a clean and intuitive interface design and in the last year, acquired a cloud-based POS system. Along with the new cloud-based offering, it has also introduced Web Store 3.0, a customizable e-commerce platform which offers a basic feature-set and web presence, linking the retail POS offerings to the power of the cloud, along with beautiful templates that are equipped for mobile commerce.

Shopify has developed a very simple interface which makes it a top player for ease-of-use. It provides good customer support and the framework (Liquid) is built on Rails and provides a very solid platform for building upon for an e-tailer, including support for mobile commerce. It offers many themes and plugins (marketing, social media, accounting etc) for less tech savvy people to build the own stores with. The POS system may take extra time to set up, but everything can be integrated from end-to-end.

Square is exceptionally simple to integrate, providing a card reader for free, the application runs off the cloud and inventory can be synchronized across devices. The interface is simple, intuitive and depending on the hardware you order with your bundle, you can can connect a receipt printer, cash drawer and barcode scanner. Another positive is the fixed processing fee of 2.75% for all transactions. All you really require to set this up is an internet connection and a mobile device.

Overview

Square is easy, cheap and provides a nimble setup. Where it has limitations, however, is its limited support for building an online presence and does not provide the comprehensive tools like LightSpeed or Shopify.

Having approached the integrated e-commerce from the bricks-and-mortar perspective, LightSpeed’s strengths remain with the POS, inventory, customer accounts, sales management and analytic systems that it started with. The e-commerce platform offers a basic foundation for both developers to build upon, and regular users to customize their stores. LightSpeed is very well suited to large retailers with a significant physical presence and the resources to implement LightSpeed properly. Once integrated with their cloud-based offering, there’s no better way to implement multi-channel commerce.

Plugins are a strong part of Shopify and provide an easy work-around for developers. The mobile-friendly aspect of the service means that an e-tailer may choose a totally different mobile theme (or the same) that uses the same data as the desktop site, just rendering it to a mobile layout. The more plugins you have, however, the more expensive it becomes. In addition, it charges third-party payment processing fees (on top of monthly fees) if you do not use the Shopify payment gateway.

All three of the platforms featured here provide a high level of service for their customers. Each platform has unique strengths which can be tailored to your business depending on your company size, budget and goals. The costs associated with both Shopify and LightSpeed may mean that smaller, mom-and-pop operations are turning to Square for their POS systems, and given the volume of payment processing so far, the level of acquisition for them is not about to slow down anytime soon. The pattern we’re seeing between the three is a move towards smooth integration of the online and offline environments whilst continually enhancing usability and great user experience. With the move, there is now an overlap of target markets; small to medium, independent sellers tend to like the low price and ease of use for Square, whereas established retail stores who once only enjoyed the solid POS system of LightSpeed now have an opportunity to integrate e-commerce and mobile payments through LightSpeed Cloud. Conversely, e-commerce businesses who have enjoyed the largely customizable Shopify webstore now have the option to integrate it with their offline stores and mobile POS.

To keep a tight hold on their customers may mean having to evolve and compete for business… watching the evolution in this space has been fascinating and, as e-commerce developers, incredibly exciting for us – there have never been such varied and robust, next-generation options available for our clients.

References:

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-big-digital-payments-trends-in-2014-2014-1

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/13/squares-secondary-offering-rizvi-sv-angel-and-groupe-artemis-are-buying-shares-values-company-at-5b/

http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/13/lightspeed-stores-6-billion/

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=83920810

http://www.shopify.ca/

http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/18/forget-ecommerce-shopify-wants-to-transform-all-retail-everywhere-everywhen-everyhow/

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/02/shopify-revamps-its-ios-app-with-a-focus-on-payments-and-store-management/

http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/18/forget-ecommerce-shopify-wants-to-transform-all-retail-everywhere-everywhen-everyhow/

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/02/shopify-revamps-its-ios-app-with-a-focus-on-payments-and-store-management/

http://www.lightspeedretail.com/about/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ilyapozin/2014/01/12/12-companies-moving-global-commerce-forward/2/

http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/13/lightspeed-stores-6-billion/

http://www.merchantmaverick.com/pos-software-reviews/lightspeed-retail-review/

http://www.merchantmaverick.com/?s=shopify

http://business.financialpost.com/tag/square-inc/

http://business.financialpost.com/2012/08/08/starbucks-partners-with-startup-square-to-offer-mobile-payments/?__lsa=94b0-ccdc

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ilyapozin/2014/01/12/12-companies-moving-global-commerce-forward/2/

[skyrkt]

Pinterest's Role in Driving Conversions

After Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest is the third most popular social network in the world. It has established itself as a ‘social discovery tool’ and is one of the most image-driven social platforms on the market today.

Last year, a Pin on Pinterest was worth 25% more in sales than the previous year. In 2014, a Pin on Pinterest is worth more than a “Like” on Facebook for retailers.

This has big implications for e-commerce.

Pinterest has nailed the foundational factors of differentiating themselves in a highly competitive market, and by adapting their user experience to the needs of their user base in the following ways;

Website design; balancing a manual, user-led behavioural function with more automated browsing, the interface provides a slick customer journey whilst avoiding navigational confusion, resulting in great usability

Optimization for the mobile market; More than three quarters of their traffic comes from mobile devices. We are experiencing an entire transition in online purchasing behaviour, so adaptation is critical.

Interestingly, Pinterest allows ecommerce websites (amongst others) to drive new traffic, and to keep that traffic coming back without having to post new content (unlike other social media channels). It is possible to do so by strategically leveraging in-built features:

Website Value pins - adding context, purchase links and related content on product images - providing a great source of user acquisition on specific landing pages

A trusted feedback portal for consumers (positive reviews by peers have a high trust level with consumers)

Now trending tool - allows partners to use real-time Pinterest data to generate lists of the most-pinned items in their online stores (and provide insight about consumer demand)

Locations pins - content can be saved with a location and then laid out on a map

The “timeless” nature of content means something can be pinned, repinned and discovered continuously over a period of time - regardless of when it was initially added.

50% of site visits take place 3.5 months after the initial pinning

Half of the orders take place 2.5 months after the initial pinning

Rich pins allow for price updates

Promoted Pins - Alright alright, not yet - but they’re planning on it!

To take advantage of the site’s ability to increase user acquisition, it must be noted that results can be impacted largely by:

Target demographic – Pinterest’s user base is predominantly female, between the ages of 15-34 years old

Customer journey – Once the user leaves Pinterest, your own site’s performance on mobile devices matters

Research (by Google) has shown that any delay longer than a second will cause the user to interrupt their flow of thought, creating poor user experience

The user must feel safe making a purchase

It must be as easy as possible for the user to get from point A (viewing) to point B (making a purchase)

Pinterest is a great channel for traffic sourcing and acquisition – easily leading customers to your doorstep. The customer may follow the channel through to your web presence in order to continue their journey and this is when that one second of lag can be the difference between a satisfied customer or a lost sale. The user experience on your own website is crucial to amplifying the benefits of any efforts being made in external channels. Pinterest can send you the audience, but it’s your job to serve them and keep them.

[skyrkt]

Our New Year's Resolution

As 2014 unfolds, we're taking a look at one of the evolutions in display technology about to hit us: 1440p.

Wait? What?

It turns out there’s a magic number right around 300 pixels per inch (ppi), that when you hold something around to 10 to 12 inches away from your eyes, is the limit of the human retina to differentiate the pixels.

Given a large enough viewing distance, all displays eventually become "Retina." It so happens that 300ppi is the resolution that magazines have been printed at for years, whereas a billboard could be printed as low as 6ppi viewed at 50 feet.

As a rule, the display and the content in the display should be optimised for viewing distance, and always aim to be slightly sharper than possible.

The Next Generation

Here at Skyrocket, we have been cropping full-screen images to the 1080p display – images 1920 pixels wide and 1080 pixels high is the sweet zone for image quality across all viewports. The next generation of smartphones lies with 2560 x 1440 pixels – AKA 1440p. Although the gaming community may have been familiar with this screen size for a while, it has yet to be properly launched on a mobile device. We say “properly” because there have been a couple of companies unveiling their own displays and disguising them with names such as LG’s Quad HD (amongst others), fancily named to promote the fact that these displays have four times the pixels of an old 720p display.

In fact, Vivo has launched the “world’s first 1440p smartphone”, which is due for release in China before the end of January 2014. It is rumoured that larger competitors are likely to follow suit in the very near future.

The trend for mobile devices has been towards more compact design, with a comparatively larger surface area for the display. Surely we need to stop somewhere? Did someone say Phablet? LG Electronics' Display unit has developed a 5.5-inch screen for next generation smartphones with a 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution. That combination equals a density of 538 ppi.The higher resolution allows users to see a full view of a desktop version web page without any image distortion (according to LG). Whether other vendors follow suit remains to be seen, but Samsung is reportedly working on a displays with the same resolution on a smaller screen size (phew).

Benefits and Usefulness

Higher resolution is great because it means we can view full desktop-version websites without distortion, but at what viewing distance? Perhaps you'd need to hold a device 3 or 4 inches from your face? With the mobile web becoming so prevalent, is such high pixel density even necessary for a mobile device?

Of course, along with pixel density, we have the physical form evolving, too… bendy screens, talk about Apple filing a patent for a wrist ornament and Samsung has said it is “definitely working on a wearable device”? What pixel density will be used for these devices?

Regardless... those are stories for another day… Let’s take 2014 one pixel at a time.

What’s your new year’s resolution?

[skyrkt]

Arts Vista has arrived in time for the holidays.

There’s typically plenty of activity over the holidays, but who wants to spend all of their time eating or engaged in rampant consumerism?

There’s no better time to take in the arts than during the festive season, and to help you down that path we’ve just launched a great new client project: Arts Vista.

Arts Vista makes discovering arts and cultural events easier and more enjoyable than ever before. By showcasing video previews of the very best events in art, dance, music, opera, film, theatre, and festivals, Arts Vista allows you to soak in the scene and immerse yourself in a kaleidoscope of cultural offerings. Having launched in Vancouver, Arts Vista will be quickly moving to Toronto and opening up in other exciting metro centres in the coming year.

Skyrocket worked with Arts Vista in developing their vision – beginning with brand and culminating in a beautiful web experience. The finished product is elegant, intuitive and engaging for everyone from the refined connoisseur to the adventurous arts noob.

For now, head over to ArtsVista.com and see what’s playing – besides The Nutcracker! ;)

[skyrkt]

Icon Love for the Holiday Season

It’s all in the details…

Icon fonts. What are they? Simply, a font (which is essentially a shape) used as an icon. The name is intuitive enough.

Icons are used to convey the essence of an action, but are an important and necessary element of your brand that must be specific enough to get ‘just right’.

When implementing Icon Fonts on your website, we ensure that you have:

Pixel-perfect fonts across every device, regardless of pixel density

We make you an amazing custom icon font which is an important piece of the bigger picture (your brand)

It is completely customizable, so we can design the font set to suit you

We can achieve all of the above due to the fact icon fonts provide an array of flexibility and design options:

Icon Fonts eliminate scaling issues and do not require a http request per character, making for a smooth, speedy site and ease for the build

Flexibility for changing colour, size, opacity & rotation

A myriad of design options that CSS provides for fonts

All changes can be made on the fly in the browser

Downsides:

None!

So, icon fonts are prrrre-tty good. I mean, they won’t solve all of your woes. But they will certainly make things easier.

[skyrkt]

Movember MO-salute to a Spaceman

At Skyrocket, we’re excited by the unusual, the oddities. This is the kind of stuff that brings us inspiration as creators.

We’re not talking about the kind of strange which makes you feel like you’re the only normal person in the room. We’re talking the kind of strange which makes you wish you’d thought of the idea first. A beautifully original idea can be executed with incredible precision to generate an explosion of interest and virality of content.

Whilst putting nearly all of our efforts into making ourselves (more) awesome, by growing our MOvember moustaches, we revisited a true Canadian legend. This guy’s 5 month excursion into the stratosphere concluded with an an awe-inspiring homage to Bowie's original Space Oddity released just under half a century ago. His spaceman melodies travelled throughout the atmosphere and only 24 hours after he’d landed back on earth, we’d watched his performance more than 1.5 million times.

The quirky video was produced on the last day of Chris Hadfield’s excursion into space. After being closed off in a ‘floating tin can’ for 5 months, the Astronaut was festering a hidden culmination of creativity and talent ready for release. Who’d’a thought it? Well, we’re not called “Skyrocket” for no reason!

Oh, did we mention it just so happens that the good sir also sports a fabulous moustache? How apt!

As a salute to Skyrocketing our own ideas from our tin can here in Gastown, and to our Canadian legend Chris Hadfield, we’re blessing you with our wonderfully hairy and ‘unique’ MOvember portraits (back by unpopular demand);

  What’s next?

Now that we have relieved ourselves of the energy channeled into the Moustache Marathon, we’ll be utilizing the additional vigour to launch some exciting projects coming very soon...

[skyrkt]

Perfection: the action or process of improving something until it is faultless (Oxford Dictionary Definition).

With delicate, flowing music and the use of short, punchy adjectives; this video takes us through a powerful journey of feeling. It is clear and intentional with only a scarcely noticeable display of irony. The imperfection displayed discretely in the line, “There are a thousand no’s” (correct grammar: noes) intentionally speaks louder than the rest of the poem.

“Confusing abundance with choice” reflects the fact that something can become more simplified, yet more useful. This defines the approach that one of the world’s most powerful brands has taken to design. Apple’s most recent iPhone 5c advertisement, for example, highlights the fact that care and consideration translate into a stunning user experience. The experience can be continually refined and redefined, but it must be powerful, intuitive and “beautifully unapologetic”.

As much as the incorrect usage of grammar in the video is simple and barely noticeable - it is significant and meaningful - which is the message at the heart of  design itself.

Design takes time, focus and intention to “perfect”.

If achieving “perfection” is considered by many people an impossibility; and if each “perfect” product has it’s own “imperfection”, then how can anybody really perfect anything?

You can’t. Perfection is relative. Perfection is just a moment in time.

[skyrkt]

It's Movember at Skyrocket

It is officially Movember! Around the world, the month formerly known as “November” has been revolutionized into a globally recognized time for gallant-looking gentlemen to take over the planet. The tagline “changing the face of men’s health” eloquently describes the change of appearance for 30 days – getting mo-bros and mo-sistas involved in their health by raising awareness and funds for prostate cancer.

Since the founding of Movember in 2003 by Adam Garone over “Sunday Beers,” the foundation has since turned into a global success, which has changed the way cancer research is being conducted around the world.  So far, the cause has allowed researchers to work more collectively. They’re doing this by taking 10% of what’s raised in each country and conducting cancer research. They’re putting it in a global fund, which has so far resulted in a better cancer screening process (TED Talks).

The cause became “truly global” in 2010. Last year, 1.1 million participants raised $147 million for causes including the prostate cancer foundation (Mashable). Canada raised $42.6-million alone, which is the second-highest total ahead of any country other than Britain (The Globe and Mail). A large proportion of the foundation’s success and continued growth stems from it’s approach to managing the brand through it’s social media channels – and more recently, its mobile app. Movember has launched the app this year to take advantage of the mobile market, since half of the time people spend online is now spent on mobile devices or tablets (Mediapost). The app is FREE and allows you to manage your fundraising, share your progress and easily recruit your friends.

In line with the founding of Movember, here at Skyrocket we also have our own brainstorming session on Fridays. We call it “Friday Beers”, so in true Movember spirit, we’ve decided to have a staff competition. All Mo-Bro’s and Sista’s are engaged in the competition.  We assure you, within one month, we will have an entire team of chivalrous-looking gentlemen (and gentle-women). After some cajoling and persuading, we managed to convince everybody to allow us to post progress pictures. Have you ever seen such displays of facial elegance? 

We're really excited about supporting such a great cause, and you can help us make a difference by making a donation here. 

[skyrkt]

The Future of Mobile

What would you think of… If we asked you about ‘The Future’?

We all have our own grand ideas and idealistic visions about what is coming or expected. Based on experience, we can see what has been, consider what is now, and visualize snippets of what is to come.

First of all, we begin with a consideration of where we have been.

Rewind. 1936. Konrad Zuse sat in is his bedroom creating Z1, the first programmable computer. From the introduction of programming, came a whole array of models, prototypes and brands. From the founding of HP in 1939, to our eventual arrival at the personal computer in 1988… The PC brought us a device and interface which the average person could connect with.

The world of “the past” had people sitting down to do computing at a "machine". Whether it was at home, school, work or in a public lab like a library or Internet cafe – they had a screen and an interface through which to make a computer just “do things” and get value from that experience.

Personal Computers gave birth to the Internet. This was a time when the internet was providing us with an easier way to communicate globally with the World Wide Web.

In parallel, our alternative method of communication – the telephone – was revolutionized. Cellular phones were introduced as a means of easier communication. The first commercial cellular phone call was initiated 30 years ago on a $9000 cell phone weighing 1.75 pounds.

Where the communication evolved so, too, followed the "computing" paradigm. The result?

We started computing on our mobile phones.

Today, a top smartphone both costs and weighs at least seven times less. Along with the obvious aesthetic and cost advancements, we have made significant advancements in messaging and communication through handheld devices. This "mobile" method of communication is so convenient and intuitive, that the cell phone has become our communication platform of choice.

Due to the emphasis on portability and connectivity, 2013 has been officially named, the ‘Post-PC era’. It marks a decline in the sales of personal computers. Consumers are turning their preference to post-PC devices (smartphones and computer tablets). As the adoption and penetration of mobile smartphones increases, we’re seeing an explosion in the number of resources and applications dedicated to computing on mobile devices, such as apps and cloud-based services.

In essence, this is a shift away from what we have been used to and a shift towards a whole new way of interacting with what we regard as "computers".

In terms of our experience with "computing", it is trapped in a viewport. In fact, many different types of viewports. We are quite impressed with ourselves when we are able to optimize the experience for our users on all of these various viewports.

So, that is where we are now. We are applying resources to make continuous improvements to the usability of these little devices. They’re getting more sleek, nimble and "natural"...

What's next? Rather than just eliminate the desktop computer, is the smartphone going to replace it?

Will we sit down at work, plug in our "phone" to a dock and have its applications available on a large, flat-panel display, paired with keyboard and touch interface? Is that it?

Are the new computing devices going to eliminate what we currently think of as being the "viewport"? What do we do when any surface can become a canvas for computing?

What do we do when the computing canvas is projected right in front of our retina, and is actually meant to augment the other big canvas we all interact with… You know - that canvas called “LIFE” filled with everything you can SEE?

Finally, what will our world look like when the experience of computing is liberated? What will our user experience be when the digital canvas can be... anything?

[skyrkt]

So, the site you built in 2001 – it’s there – it does its job. If I squint at it on my phone, it works okay. Yes, it works ‘okay’ but imagine that person standing around, waiting for that same friend who isn’t going to turn up for the next half hour again (or at all?). Are they wanting to stand there squinting, pinching, pressing, punching, redirecting… when they could just go to a site which welcomes them with open arms and guides them to the content they need without the unnecessary hassle of the confusing finger-work and eye-strain.

So, how do we achieve a smooth, integrated design and content parity to ensure the ease and contentment of our users?

Well, there are two main ways we can do this: adaptive or responsive web design.

The biggest similarity between the two methods is that they both allow websites to be viewed on mobile devices of various screen sizes. This allows you to build a website once, and have it work seamlessly across thousands of devices. Ultimately, this improves the user experience for your customer and increasingly, the two are even being used together.

Let’s break it down to the basics.

We have two options in which we can manipulate the way your website is displayed on a mobile device. The way they differ, is in the delivery of their structures.

We can:

Adapt- “become adjusted to new conditions:”*

or

Respond- “react quickly or positively to a stimulus or treatment”*

*Oxford Dictionary Definition

Enter the arena: Adaptive Web Design vs. Responsive Web Design.

Why does it matter? Why one and not the other, when they both essentially make my website look ‘pretty’ on a smaller (or larger) screen?

The difference between these two approaches really lies in the stage of a website build (is it new, or a pre-existing site?), the amount of content existing on the site (lots of large images and heavy assets?), and the amount of technical know-how available to implement the correct solution.