Marketing Archives - Startup One Stop

Halloween Lessons for Founders

October 28, 2025 Bonnie Comments 0 Comment

We are still struggling with a broken right thumb, or boo-boo, considering that Halloween is upon us. Scary that it’ll take a few more weeks to heal, and speaking of scary, we decided to consider what lessons Halloween might have for founders.

First, a bit of history. “Some say the festival has its origins in pre-Christian traditions that mark the changing of the seasons,” according to MSN. “The ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, was also a pagan religious tradition that welcomed the end of summer harvest, and the changing of seasons… The Celts reportedly believed that around this time of the year, the veil between the living and the dead was thinner, and spirits could walk the earth. This is where the costumes came in, worn as disguises by festival-goers so they could “avoid being terrorized by all the evil spirits walking the Earth during Samhain.”

“Halloween just has that open world magic that you don’t get any other time of year. It’s this one day where everyone is encouraged to dress up as whatever wild thing they want, and go walking around town together while other groups of kids/teens do the same thing. It’s this wonderful, connected community that doesn’t exist for anything else,” a fan on Reddit commented. Read More...

The Myth of the Crowded Vertical

April 29, 2025 Bonnie Comments 0 Comment

Disclosure: this is not a new product promotion but rather a study in how to potentially disrupt a very crowded vertical.

“A new American electric vehicle startup called Slate Auto has made its debut, and it’s about as anti-Tesla as it gets,” TechCrunch reported, once again missing the forest through the trees, and proving yet again that the tech media loves to get their digs in, whether it’s appropriate or not.

While there are current Tesla owner who are experiencing buyer’s remorse, or as the New York Times wrote, “In Marin County, There’s Trouble in Teslaville,” is the main selling point of the Slate the fact that it isn’t a Tesla? Or maybe the fact that “It’s affordable, deeply customizable, and very analog. It has manual windows, and it doesn’t come with a main infotainment screen. Heck, it isn’t even painted. It can also transform from a two-seater pickup to a five-seater SUV,” as TechCrunch pointed out. Read More...

The Dire Wolf: A Lesson in Startup Basics

April 15, 2025 Bonnie Comments 0 Comment

Easter is coming and speaking of resurrections, dire wolves, made famous by HBO’s Game of Thrones, have been extinct for around 12,500 years, but “thanks to genetic engineers at biotech company Colossal Biosciences, these majestic predators are back,” Live Science reported. The pups were even named after the dire wolves from the HBO series: Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi.

“The company claims to have achieved this by extracting DNA from dire wolf fossils in 2021, isolating and growing gray wolf cells, and “tinkering” with the genes. They then transferred that DNA into empty canine eggs and transplanted those into fertile dogs,” Daily Dot explained.

As for this being a resurrection event, “Colossal’s critics have pointed out that, out of thousands of genetic differences that distinguish dire wolves from gray wolves, the company made only a handful of edits focused on recapitulating obvious physical traits such as fur color and texture,” Science.org reported. “Many researchers were also quick to note that according to a 2021 genetic analysis published in Nature, the dire wolf might not even be a wolf at all, belonging instead to a North American lineage of dogs that diverged from the ancestors of gray wolves more than 5 million years ago. As that study’s lead author Angela Perri told Science in 2021, the dire wolf was more closely related to the African jackal than the gray wolf and may have resembled “a giant, reddish coyote.” Read More...

The Apple iPad Commercial: That’s Not What’s Meant By ‘Crushing It’

May 14, 2024 Bonnie Comments 0 Comment

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

“Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create,” Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted last week, proudly showing off his company’s latest product – and setting off a media and Twitter/X firestorm.

In the commercial, the company that has long been the standard bearer for providing creator tools showed a hydraulic press pulverizing a number of the physical tools on which its very core market – artists – depends: musical instruments (including an upright piano), cans of paint, an 80s arcade game, a sculpture, to name a few.

“You destroyed all the creative tools and effort of humans. Worst. Commercial. Ever,” was just one of the comments in the Twitter/X feed. Read More...

How to Fail Spectacularly

April 18, 2023 Bonnie Comments 0 Comment

There is a place called The Museum of Failure and as the Failure Report noted, “The Museum of Failure is a collection of failed products from the United States and worldwide. They have exhibited everywhere from Sweden to Shanghai. Most products and startups fail, unfortunately, and the museum showcases these failures to provide “a fascinating learning experience.” Every item gives a unique insight into the risky business of innovation. The goal of this kitschy museum is to stimulate productive discussion about failure and consider the possibility of risk.”

The exhibit is making the rounds globally and is in New York until May.

Crystal Pepsi, anyone? Pass. Read More...

What Founders Can Learn from Drug Dealers

December 13, 2022 Bonnie Comments 0 Comment

Disclaimer: we are in no way intimating or outright suggesting that you become purveyors of drugs, legal or otherwise.

We’ve long known that tech can be addictive. When was the last time you left home without your cellphone? Or voluntarily spent a day or more without checking email et al? Read More...

Fake It Til You Make It 2.0

October 1, 2019 Bonnie Comments 0 Comment

More and more we’re seeing founders without so much as a plan to profitability raise outrageous amounts of venture capital based mostly on, from what we can tell, hubris, being mediagenic and what may arguably be either a Napoleonic complex, a touch of bipolar syndrome, or some combination of the two.

There seems to be a clear pathway to success in technology without having to be bothered with showing profits or even having a viable or clearly defined product, but given the downfall of Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos), Travis Kalanick (Uber), and most lately Adam Neumann (WeWork), that pathway hasn’t been clearly defined, or refined. But we have been paying attention, and we believe we have come up with 12 basic rules for success in technology – even with little or simple tech required: Read More...

Why the Food Hipsters Are Pissing Me Off

June 11, 2019 Bonnie Comments 0 Comment

Disclaimer: we know that the information here applies to none of our readers, and is not to be taken personally.

Here’s the thing about hipsters: they want to be different, re non-conformist, so they adopt a unique way of dressing. Of course, those accouterments then become the hipster uniform, and so much for non-conformity. Read More...

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