Everything I Know
Page 6
If the result isn't what you intended or doesn’t make you happy, you're now free. When you're working on an idea, you get caught up in making it work. There's vested interest in thinking, “I've come too far to fail now!” But if it does fail, lay all the puzzle pieces out and start from scratch. Try different pieces in unique ways. Go back to the start of the book and pick a new path. Avoid the dragon this time, since there's a road that bypasses him.
How I experiment
I focus on the task at hand, not the end result. Focusing on the process allows serendipity and personal exploration to take over. Otherwise, I might inadvertently apply a subjective idea of how I want something to turn out, rather than what would be best for long-term discovery.
I try not to create and judge at the same time. Creation and judgment are very different thought processes and can interfere with each other, so they must be done separately. I experiment and explore every idea first (writing it down, drawing it out, actually trying to do it). Only then do I move into editing, curating, and judging to improve and refine the idea.
I break the experiment down into the smallest tasks possible. Then, I work completely on each small task. Only at the end do I tie all those tasks together. This prevents me from feeling overwhelmed or scared about tackling such a big project.
I remember that these are experiments. They’re not full-time business ideas. First, I figure out how to run the experiment using the least resources possible. What is the core or essence of my idea that I can quickly prototype? Then I get that prototype in front of as many people as possible before pursuing it further. I fail fast.
I don’t repeat myself. The same experiment can’t have a different result unless I change the variables. If I experiment with an idea and it doesn’t work, I either change things up or move onto a new idea. There’s no point doing the same experiment over and over, hoping for something new to happen. If I want a different outcome, I have to change the experiment up a little — refocus for a new audience, try a different medium, or experiment with a completely new idea.
Intentions are evident
Our intentions are always evident to others. We are mostly horrible liars, and sometimes, we're just lying to ourselves. Before starting any experiment, it’s smart to evaluate why you want to do it in the first place. What are you trying to accomplish? How does this experiment align with your values?
As hipster as it might seem, the coffee industry has great examples of how business is shaped by intention. You can get a cup of coffee nearly anywhere—from gas stations to trendy local cafes to massive corporate chains and even most surf shops. Despite their shared business goal of staying profitable, they all have very different intentions.
Blue Bottle Coffee’s mission statement talks about offering seats to the elderly on public transit and flossing daily. In contrast, Starbucks uses flowery corporate-speak to describe its high standards, ethics, and exceptional products. Can you guess where I’d rather have a coffee? Starbucks could be describing cars, computers or even social media. The lack of passion is evident and using flowery marketing language doesn’t fool anyone.
Even people who haven’t watched an episode of Mad Men can sense the intentions of these two coffee companies. Starbucks might spend lots of money to get their tone right, but they still feel like a business that’s trying to sell you coffee. Blue Bottle, however, feels like people who love coffee so much, they want to sell you a cup that you’ll love, too.
Our intentions are like a red ball shuffled around under three plastic cups. We like to think we're great magicians and we can trick our audience, but the cups are transparent to anyone playing the game.
Intentions explain why sales pitches sound like sales pitches, and why most commercials are immediately identifiable as commercials. We can innately understand what the other person really wants.
So why not pursue something good? That way, when people see your intentions, they'll feel good about them, instead of angry or disappointed.
When we put our own passion, humor, fear and love into our work, it means so much more and resonates more deeply with others. Why? Because it becomes a rallying point for ourselves and our audience. Think of it this way: a record label tells a band to write a song about a fictional girl named Jenny. The band releases that song to the world. Then the songwriter falls in love with a girl named Lisa and writes another song about her. They release this song, too. Which song do you think will make a stronger connection? Which song do you think will be more popular?
If your work is based on helping others, showing that intention is a no-brainer. People will be drawn to your work, because we're all a little selfish and want our pain to go away. But if your work is focused on making money, people will see that you want to relieve them of their hard-earned cash.
You can certainly try to chase things like money or fame or popularity; these things aren't wrong or even bad. But you’d better be the David-Fucking-Copperfield of what you do to hide those intentions. Otherwise, you’ve got to own them completely and openly (think: Donald Trump).
No second-hand experiments
You could convince yourself that if someone already tried a certain path and failed, you don't need to try it, either. You see their failure as proof that the path leads nowhere.
But just as you can't take the same path to success as someone else, the same logic applies to failure.
You have to try for yourself to get valid results. To see what actually happens. You might be left with scars, but at least those scars will become visible reminders of your journey.
How I validate an idea
I validate ideas by trying them out. Most of my initial ideas take almost no money and only require time to explore. If I enjoy doing the work, then the time is well spent.
I validate ideas by launching them – and every idea can be distilled down to something you can start with almost no money and some initial work. So, I start with the essence of the idea first, test it out with others, and see where it goes. Prototyping works.
Sometimes successful work can lead to less innovation, and then the real making stops. You become more like a factory production line than a meaningful creator.
Perfection is the biggest excuse for not launching. If only a few more things were perfect, we say, then it would be ready for other people to consume. If only we could just get this one piece right.
Perfection prevents launching because it’s easy to keep circling back and endlessly refining. The truth is, perfection cannot even exist until it’s tested, and even then, it’s probably still impossible. Stop chasing perfection. Stop focusing on small details that don’t matter and that hold you back from releasing big ideas.
Super hero stuff
Helping people can lead to full-time work if enough people seek your help – and if you’re in the business of helping people full-time? That sounds like the stuff of super heroes. You’ve proven that your prototype has legs. You can build on that success and start selling websites or cars.
When you're solving someone's problems with your valued expertise, you're going to satisfy a lot of people. They'll tell others how you helped them, and you'll have more people asking for help.
So help people. Start doing it right now.
BOOK THREE
Art, craft & passion
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”
Scott Adams
Every entrepreneur is an artist
If you’re doing your own work in your own way, you won’t be happy with the status quo. Maybe you have an idea about how something could be smarter or work better. That's great; stir the pot a little more.
Doing your own work is important. Innovation comes from starting, saying, or trying something new – not from following what others have done or what worked for them. So be a rogue agent. Zig instead of zagging. This requires tremendous creativity, but thankfully you're showing up as often as possible to be creative.
I don’t believe in “following your passion.” I hate advice, and this is horrible advice. Passion is good, but it needs frequent examination. Is your passion motivated by external rewards (like fortune or fame) or guided by internal values that you feel at your core? Either way, passion isn’t enough.
Instead, find your intersection—where what you do is meaningful and helps people who are willing to pay for your products or services.
It’s not enough that you’re excited about something; other people (your audience) also need to be excited enough to pay you for it. You could create a product so exciting that you let out childish “squees” every time you think about it. But if no one wants to buy it, you can’t make a business from it.
Your intersection requires a great deal of craft. You have to be good at something. You can certainly be passionate about it, but you also have to be skilled. Otherwise, make it a hobby and enjoy it in your downtime. You never have to share your hobbies with anyone else or make them profitable, and this is the beauty of hobbies—they can be all about you.
If you aren't good at your craft yet, enough to make it into full-time work, ask yourself if you'd be willing to put in the time and sweat to become the best in the world. If yes, keep going. If no, find something else.
Once you’ve put in the time and sweat and you’re still not closer to being the best, find something different—not everyone is good at everything and you haven't found your sweet spot yet, so you have to adapt. Experiment with new things. You don’t have to be the best in the world, but you need to keep improving in noticeable ways.
Try to generate as many ideas as possible. Commit to developing them routinely and you'll eventually hit on one that you care about and are good at doing. Increase those odds by showing up often.
Passion is a tricky thing. You can be passionate about the process or the people involved in a project, for example, even if the work itself isn’t the object of your obsession. You can be in love with the fundamentals but not the trappings, especially if it’s in your intersection between craft and passion.
Find the intersection where your interests meet your skills and reach an audience that'll pay for your time, work, products or services.
Craft vs. value
In 2007 I started a company with two friends. One is a programmer who now works at Twitter. The other is a marketing guy who has since started several successful companies. We all knew our respective crafts.
The company was an online ad network for environmentally friendly businesses (serving the ads on environmentally-focused blogs). It felt like the perfect idea. I've always been involved with eco charities, because stewarding the environment is something I care deeply about. So, building an eco-focused tech company aligned with my values and my expertise. We even tied charitable donations right into the business model, so as our revenues grew, so would our donations to environmental groups.
My co-founders were not only great friends, but also successful people (they still are). We had the best designs, solid code and a sound strategy to build an audience and consumer base for our product.
We took months to develop the perfect solution and get our audience excited about the launch. We had companies interested in putting their ads on our network, as well as high-traffic publishers and bloggers keen to feature “green only” ads on their sites.
But then September 2008 arrived and the global markets crashed. Advertising budgets, even if they weren't directly hit, shriveled up and died.
We were left with zero financial interest in our product. After trying for months to find new advertisers, we were forced to abandon the project. We had built what we felt was an incredible product that aligned perfectly with our values and passions. But in the end, we didn't have an audience willing or able to pay for it.
All three of us brought our skill and craft to the project, but the intended audience didn’t see enough value or necessity to complete the transaction. Because the market crashed and changed, the business didn’t have legs to stand on.
Sometimes having a refined craft is only a piece of the equation. You also need an audience ready to shell out cash in exchange for your work. My partners and I put in the work, but it ultimately failed because we couldn’t convince the audience of its value in a tight economic climate.
Connections are made between two people
Individuals, not the anonymous “masses,” make connections with you. So don't bother trying to make everyone happy, or convince everyone to want what you make. It's impossible and it can quickly get disheartening to please people who don't care for it in the first place.
Your work is your story, told through your unique lens. Some will disagree with you, but some won't. Draw a line in the sand based on your values and stay true to what you believe. The people standing on your side of the line are now easier to pick out. They're your audience, allies, promoters and friends.
The only one who can make and share your work is you. It rests on your shoulders. It can be scary and overwhelming, but revolutions are necessary. Without them nothing would ever change and the world would be a pretty boring place.
The only way to really see if and how your work connects with people is to do it and then put it out there.
Find your people
Your business is about your people. It's not just about you or what you make, but about everyone the work can touch. It’s about their story and how they use what you've made – how something you make can help the whole group instead of just you.
Srinivas Rao calls these people your small army. These are the folks who find value in your work. They’re the people who get what you’re talking about. Most importantly, these are the people who show up to the work you create. They interact with it, buy it and even promote and share it.
These people are your royalty because they’re willing to listen to what you have to say. These are the people who stand on your side once you’ve drawn that line in the sand. They show that you’re not alone in what you do, and you show them the same.
Finding your people can be difficult, but it starts with a few questions: Who do you like to be around? How can your work help them? Who do you connect with naturally? Who feels closer to you, the more you share with them and reveal your honest thoughts?
Your people aren’t necessarily those who follow you on social media. In fact, you might not even have a single interaction with most of them. They could be the 10 folks who bought your last piece of work. They are definitely your people if they told everyone they know about the work you do.
Your people don’t have to be a huge group; they can just be that “small army.” Connect with them individually at first and go from there. Help them if they need help, re-align what you do if it doesn’t serve them anymore, and be as honest as possible with them at all times.
My people are on my mailing list. It’s where I most enjoy communicating and interacting. It’s a small group, for sure, but they’re the people who are first to give me feedback, sign up for what I offer, and simply talk to me. I’ve spoken to dozens of subscribers on the phone and it only reinforced how much I enjoy interacting with them. I could lose my social media accounts tomorrow and not sweat it, but you’d have to pry my mailing list from my cold, dead, can’t-connect-to-the-internet fingers.
Rallying points
Do you remember in medieval times (me neither, but stick with me) when you were in battle, possibly losing or confused, and then someone would hoist up your flag?
You'd get the urge to fight just a little harder and move toward that flag, hopefully with more soldiers on your side doing the same.
The flag became a beacon that instantly identified a common cause. Got to make it to my flag, you'd think, and then you'd be surrounded by like minds (in this case, minds that didn’t want to kill you). And from there, you could further your common goal.
The idea of flags as broadcast messages and rallying points is as old as culture.
&nb
sp; Flags are more than just well-designed fabric with nice logos. They proclaim an immediately identifiable idea. What they stand for is more important than what they look like. You either believe it, and therefore stand behind it, or it doesn't resonate and you know it's not your flag. It’s a black and white, cut and dried sort of thing.
In those old times, everyone wore basically the same suit of armor, so it was hard to tell who you should help and who you should use a sword against. Flags were used to differentiate the two.
Even now, it can still be hard to tell who’s the right audience for your business, versus who most certainly isn’t a good fit.
I like the idea of focusing your work around a “rallying point.” It's more than simply branding, messaging or even business goals. It's a line in the sand, with your work and the values it represents on one side and everyone or everything else that doesn't fit on the other side. It immediately illustrates who’s part of your small army.
It can be scary to draw that line in the sand – especially when it's your business. Doing so immediately alienates certain people or entire groups. But raising a flag is important because it acts as a beacon for those individuals who are your people, your tribe, and your audience. You hoist it up and they know where to find you.
What would a rallying point look like for a non-medieval business? Think of a corporate mission statement, like the lululemon manifesto. If you aren't into yoga, sweating and positivity, you won't like what it says – but then you wouldn't buy a pair of their pants anyway (unless you’re into see-through pants). But if you do, you might read it and think, "HECK, YES. THIS" and you'd probably already be wearing their logo.