Outliers: The Story of Success?

Building a "better place"

This project is one of the most exiting project I ever heard of:

When it comes to environment, there are a lot of debates on possible solutions and their their effectiveness. But here, I can say that shai Agassi (founder of 'Better Place") is really revolutionizing the car industry - at least as much as Steve jobs in the mobile phone industry with the iphone.

Imagine this:
Like a mobile phone, you can own an 'almost free' (electrical) car by signing a subscription plan / contract
Like a mobile phone. you pay as you use (instead of minutes, you pay for kilometers - and only that)
Like a mobile phone, you can use your car anywhere with coverage (but instead of antenna, you have battery exchange stations)

I love the idea of:

Driving a car that is 100% carbon emission free.
A car that can be more powerful than a ferrari -but still 100% electric
'Giving' cars to the average joe (so electric cars will be mass market in no-time)
"Switching" batteries faster than filling my tank with oil

And as Seth Godin explains, the car industry would be much healthier with hundreds of car manufacturers (like it was in the early days of the car industry) instead of a few giants: Better for competition, better for innovation, better for local jobs (!!!).

We all can now dream that, in 10 years from now, Apple (yes, Apple!!!) will launch its "iCar" with all the sexiness of an iPhone, the stability/security of its OS (but this time on the road, not on desktop) and the buzz around this on all sort of (online and offline) magazines.

But to comfort my friend Sebastien Cottet (de Simexa.com) - who is an absolute Ferrari car lover - I am sure Ferrari will keep its cars running with oil for several decades before it even starts thinking of going 'electric'. (But I am also sure that some electric cars will have programs/options in their OS to simulate specific engine noises, like you can today choose wallpaper for your desktop - and I know, Sebastien... it's not the same....)

Are you a true fan?

I just read this article and found it very interesting.

Basically, Kevin tells us that any music artist could and should focus on gathering 1,000 fans in order to make a living. The reason is that choices are exploding, and it becomes harder and harder to make yourself known in the long tail of the music industry. Thus, people that are actually happy to pay for your music, or drive more than 200kms to see you in concert are the people to interact with, sell music to. And they actually might be your best advertising tool, telling their friends about you and your music.

I think it makes sense, but I do not really believe in it entirely. Here's why:

My definition of "fan" would be someone admiring, following and adoring an artist. But there's a second level to this: "being a fan" implies distance, inaccessibility, dreams... If you get too close to your fans, then the dream evaporates. Actually, there seems to have an optimum distance with your fans. Be too far too early, and they will not hear you. Be too close, and the deam is gone. On the "Be too far" aspect, that might actually work - but you have to make sure that your true fans first saw you and started adoring you. Once you have the fans, you can go as far as you want it seems: The extreme example would be Bob Marley, Jim Morrisson or Elvis Presley. They are, by definition, real icons. BUt they're also not in this world anymore. They did have a huge impact in the music industry (and thus, got their fans on the wagon) but, the day they died, something else happened. They became totally inaccessible. They became gods.

Also, fans usually become fans to express who they are, or to belong to a community. In marketing, we would call that "positioning". You share the values/beliefs/ideas of the artist and therefore, you can identify yourself with a community. You will need a critical mass before you actually want to become part of that community. Is 1,000 people enough? Maybe, maybe not.

Finally, you cannot be a true fan of someone like you - someone who has a life that seems to be quite similar to yours. Think about it: could you really be a fan of a singer, playing in your town, in some bars you go to...and after have a drink with him? Not enough dreams, too much proximity. No way. So for local artists, I think the idea of "gathering" true fans, one by one, is a very difficult if not impossible task.

Don't get me wrong: If you're a music artist and you want to have fans, the solution is not to hide (or at least all the time) from people who might like your music. It's not either to die and hoping you'll become an icon. And it's not either to give up and wait for a record company to call you.

No, the best way to get fans would be to clearly express your style (if possible unique), be viral (give out some of your music for free or on donation basis as Radiohead did), and cultivate mystery. Keep that mystery box between you and your listeners. Do not tell everything. Be like a magician - because, if you start telling your listeners your "tricks", then the magic is gone and so are your fans.

Digesting a Meatball Sundae

I read several books from Seth Godin, the lastest one being "Meatball Sundae". From all my Godin's readings, I would summarize in a nutshell some of the core ideas:

The best marketing is in the product:
Every interaction your company has with its clients is a marketing opportunity

Tell an authentic story
Be sure that from your receptionist to the CEO, from your homepage to your product design, all is aligned properly, telling the same (authentic) story. It does not have to be true, but it has to be authentic and match people's believes (do you really think wall-mart is working hard to sell products are cheap as possible? No, but they tell us that, and we do want to believe it).


Inverse the megaphone: let your clients speak out
The old marketing was: make average products for average people. Buy ads and sell your products. With the money you make with the ads, buy more ads. And so on... The idea was to "shout" at people: my product is for sell, buy it. Well, this does not work anymore. Too many choices, too many types of clients, too many marketing channels. So invest the money you have in the product you have (improve it!), and let your customers tell you what's great and what's not. If you do that, your clients will connect with your company, and they'll start telling their friends how great your company/product/service is.


Go on the edge.
Be different. Do not be average in what you do. Think of the MP3 analogy: successful MP3 players are either cheap or remarkable. For 20U$, you can buy an MP3 on Amazon. People would buy it because it's cheap. On the other hand, for 299U$ (15 times more!!), you can buy an ipod. People would buy it because it's remarkable. Now, think of the ZUNE. It's neither cheap, nor remarkable. It's just average. And people do not want this anymore. Stop making average products and make either the cheapest, the most expensive, the smallest, the whatever-est, but do not make average products.


The last one (my favorite actually):
It easier to find products for your clients than to find clients for your products


Can you apply all of the above?

Change of apartment and office every month

If you're bored living in the same apartment, same city and with the same colleagues, I think it's time for you to change. And guess what? It's fairly easy:

1- Start an online business (fully automated)
2- Take a map and choose the cities you wanna 'explore'
3- Go to Moveandstay.com and book an apartment + office on the cities you have selected.
4- Get a ticket online and start the journey.

Easy!

Better doing it now than later

It's always the same. We wait wait wait, until it's almost perfect - or at least, until we're ready. It can be blogging, going on a diet, calling someone you have not heard of for some time.... We often wait to be in a better mood/situation/mindset. That's what happened to me over the last few weeks - no time for nothing. Well, I have made a decision to "just doing it". Yes, as Nike tells us each time we lace our sport shoes, I will act more. Like blogging for example. And so should you: take a piece of paper, a pen, and write down things (usually a goal, an end result) you have had in your head for too long. Next to that, write the steps to reach that goal and a timeframe. Do the first step right away and you'll see that the rest is easy. Have a great one!

It's the people, stupid!

I was just reading an article about skype failing to meet Ebay's expectations. It seems that this aquisition was not such a good idea as it is not performing as much as expected. Mergers, acquisitions, fusions, partnerships... All the business development concepts more often fail than succeed. Why? here's my little explanation:

When you start a partnership with someone, you may have three different approaches:

it makes sense approach:
- I am selling flight tickets, you sell airport picks up => boom, let's partner and offer airport pickup once a ticket has been purchased
- I am selling coffee, you are selling music => let's have it together and create coffee shops with music you can buy on spot!
- I am renting ski chalets, you rent ski equipment => let's partner and cross sell our services

we like each other and we think we can go great things together approach
- You and I want to create a company. You're in IT, and I'm in marketing => boom, let's open up a business
- I define business this way, so you do => let's partner together on this

It's interesting to note that, for some logical reasons, we tend to go for the rational approach (approach#1): we have products that are similar/complementary, so let's work around this. The problem with this approach is that we do not take into account the people that are going to work together on the partnerhsip. And you can have the best idea ever, if the execution is less than average, then the results can be catastrophic. Were eBay and Skype 's company's cultures compatible? Future will tell. If you take the Apple+Motorola example (RockR mobile phone), the incompatibility was certain and the products failed miserably.

The other approach is probably what Google has been during over the last 36 months. Buying lots of startup companies with talented and entrepreneurial "geeks". Same people as Sergey and Larry in a way. I am not saying they buy the companies regardless of the startup itself, no. But I would bet that Google bets much more on the people "they are acquiring" than the idea.

I guess, the very best is to mix both approaches. If you manage to have complementary products and people with full compatibility, then you are highly likely to succeed.

A very complete article on this topic.