Brainstorms | Timmy Hendrickson

So when you're starting your own business, or if you're helping someone start their own, there will be a lot of brainstorms that you go to. Whether it's brainstorms about marketing or operations, or even what kind of aesthetic you want for the office, there will be a lot of brainstorms. So these are just some guidelines to brainstorms, because startups love brainstorms, and I just wanted to share some information with you guys. Number 1, fill the room with people who disagree. This is not meant to be what— this is what I mean. I don't want people, when I say disagree, I don't want them showing up to a meeting like this. But you want people with different ideas, different backgrounds, different thoughts, just different, not different everything, but who can respect each other. And it's not a room full of the same person. If I got my best friend in a room, And we said, oh, let's brainstorm something. We're gonna come up with something very generic and it's gonna be very limited 'cause it's just what the two of us like. But if I get someone who's not my best friend and 3 other people with different backgrounds, we're gonna find out what they like, their own experiences. Basically, don't surround yourself with yes-men because yes-men will just shake their heads, yeah, of course, great idea, let's do it. You don't want that. You want to be challenged. 2, don't say but, say and. A lot of times in marketing, especially in brainstorms, people say, oh, that idea, it's good, but what about this? Instead of doing that, say, hey, it's a good idea, and we could do this. There was a time I was working for Red Bull back in college, and the University of Redlands is about an hour east of Los Angeles, so about an hour east from the beach. And my manager and I were talking, saying, oh yeah, it'd be great to send a bunch of kids out to surf in the morning, but it's not necessarily all that great of an experience. And we said, well, let's not say the word but. Let's say and. So what we did, we got a bunch of kids together bright and early in the morning. and took them out to the beach to surf. And then we said, and later on in the afternoon, let's take them snowboarding. Right? It was called Red Bull Switchboard, and it was like the ultimate California day. You wake up, by 7 AM you're in Huntington Beach surfing some waves. I'm not a surfer, so I was just spectating. And then at the end of the— or towards the middle of the day, get into a bus, send a bunch of college kids up to Big Bear, which is only like— How far is that? Maybe 2 hours away from Huntington Beach, and let's have them snowboard or ski. And I'm not much of a skier or snowboarder myself, so a lot of the day was just me hanging out on the beach and then hanging out at the bar at the mountain. But it's a very fun idea, and it's not something that we would have necessarily come to think of if we were using the word but. Don't be afraid to get weird. There are some of the best ideas out there are just weird ideas, and you would think to yourself, like, wait, that did well? Weird will break the static, right? You can be basic, you can have commercials and advertisements and events that are just run-of-the-mill, but luckily back with Red Bull, we like to get weird, and one of the things we did was through an event, called Red Bull Play and Destroy. College event is where we got 16 kids together with their iPods, and we gave them different categories, like best '80s song, best 2 AM party song, best makeout song, best junior high dance song. And what we did is we pitted them one-on-one at bars, and we had a great MC up on stage and said, hey, you know, for this category, you get to play your best boy band song. So you have one person playing I Want It That Way by Backstreet Boys, the other one Bye Bye Bye, NSYNC. And it was like, you know, we chose a bar where it was already popular, but on an off night. So let's say a Wednesday, and this wasn't my event in San Francisco, I was running these out in Southern Ohio, I just couldn't find a picture of it. But ran it on off night, really hyped it up, got kids to hang out and party on a Wednesday. And see their friends, their classmates up there on stage having the time of their life because they were just playing in sync. Keep it simple. Second time I've said keep it simple. And it's a relatively important idea in brainstorming. Once you get too complex, or if you try and be complex, you might get lost in the weeds. So again, another event with Red Bull. What are some things college kids at 4-year universities like to do? Party. Exactly. Hit it on the head. They like to rage. So one of these guys, one of the Red Bull guys from Chicago— what's that? Is that what this was? Oh yeah, you can see the headphones. Well, I couldn't find it. I wish I had pictures back from my Red Bull days, but they were locked. They were on my company computer that I had to give back when I left. So these are just like Google stock photos. But we came up with this idea, it was called Red Bull Just Fucking Rage. That was it. All it was was we brought these 2 DJs, we toured them around the Midwest, and we rented out the bar for a night, and all we did was rage. And that's very Red Bull, right? It speaks to that consumer. And there was nothing really too special about the event. Rather than we gave out some pretty sweet headbands and there were Red Bull drink specials. So really it was bringing these 2 top talent DJs to a college town, giving out a little bit of swag, and just raging. So as simple as that. Reach consumers in new and exciting ways. Another thing, and I'm gonna continue to use Red Bull as examples, but one thing that we did During move-in was we liked to put these little 4-packs in college dorms that either already had refrigerators or college apartment complexes where kids were moving into. And as you can see on this little Post-it note that we stuck to the 4-pack, nobody ever wishes they slept more during college. Right? I mean, if I look back when I was in school, 2007 to 2011, I don't remember the nights I got 8 hours of sleep. I remember the nights You know, we were out late doing fun stuff. I remember the grades I got, which were pretty good. But some of the best memories are you out there with your friends. So this is speaking to— this is kind of setting the tone for like the first week of school. You move into your dorm, your apartment complex, open the fridge, and boom, you already have half the party right there because you have a 4-pack. The next thing you just need to add is some Jäger vodka. And then lastly, listen. Too many times, in my own experience, people will interrupt or they'll completely dismiss someone in the room. Not only is that very disrespectful, you might actually miss out on a very good point. So don't be afraid to listen. People come from different backgrounds, have different ideas, and so make sure you're taking full advantage of it. Thanks, Tim.