Ideas stolen from other industries helped grow the Geek Squad from a one-man operation with a bicycle, phone and $200 into an IT repair service behemoth with 25,000 employees and thousands of iconic black-and-white Geekmobiles, the company’s founder proudly admitted Tuesday.
“Every problem you face in your business has been solved,” said Robert Stephens, Geek Squad founder and former CTO of Best Buy. Stephens delivered a keynote speech at CompTIA ChannelCon 2013, the premier education and partnering event for the IT channel.
But when looking for ideas for steal, it’s best to look for them outside the boundaries of one’s industry, he advised. “The last place you should look for ideas is the IT industry. That’s where all your competitors are looking. Steal it from somewhere else.”
Among the sources that Stephens relied on to build the Geek Squad brand:
NASA, where everyday people did remarkable things, such as putting a man on the moon; and where starched white short-sleeve shirts and narrow black ties were the dress code of choice.
Old fashioned service stations, “where things you wanted done were done without you having to ask,” such as an attendant pumping gas, checking the air in tires and cleaning windshields.
The Andy Griffith Show, where Sheriff Taylor’s black-and-white police cruiser inspired the look of the Geek Squad vehicle fleet.
“The best thing that ever happened to me when I started my company was having no money,” Stephens related. “It forced me to do things for myself. When you have no money for marketing, everything you do is marketing.”
He also cautioned against over-analyzing decisions about how to brand and market a business. “The best marketing takes advantage of what’s already in the customer’s mind.”
Among other tidbits from Stephens’ speech: Twitter is his current favorite tech tool and form of communication. “It’s really a shame more companies don’t use social media to stay connected to their customers.”
“Your people are your brand.” Stephens said he looks for three skills in prospective employees – curiosity, ethics and drive – because those skills cannot be taught or trained.
“Have more fun,” he said. “Humor is a very effective way in projecting confidence in your brand.”
The proliferation of hand-held mobile devices “forces you to look at your business through a four-inch window. If you are cramming a desktop paradigm into a four-inch window, you’re in trouble.”
Stephens also shared with ChannelCon his thought on where innovation is happening.
One product category is new postage stamp-sized (and smaller) sensors. “Follow the sensors and follow the data that these sensors generate.”
He also mentioned Google Glass, the wearable computer with the optical head-mounted display.
While much of the attention has been on consumer uses, Stephens said there could be commercial applications for this type of device, too. For example, technicians troubleshooting problems at a customer site could visually share what they’re seeing with colleagues back in the office to help solve problems.
But perhaps the biggest opportunity in the coming years will be apps and solutions that allow for the “dynamic dispatch of excess capacity.” A few current examples of this are Groupon, the deal of the day website, and Open Table, a real-time online restaurant reservation network.
“This is going to happen to every single industry,” Stephens concluded. “Someone is going to have to hook all this up. That creates a huge opportunity.”
