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You need to tell a story.
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Most people particularly into technology
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are horrible at telling stories
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You need to tell a story.
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Why did you start eBay?
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Why did you start Google?
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Why did you start Apple?
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You can even make up the story, after the fact
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One of the great legends of Silicon valley
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is that eBay was because of
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Pierre Omidyars' girlfriend wanted to sell
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pez dispensers.
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Okay. The truth is that he really wanted to
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create a perfect market where demand and
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supply cross each other. The perfect market
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And to have a perfect market, you need to
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eliminate geography.
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The story of the pez dispenser
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is after the fact.
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Now, I'm not encouraging you to lie
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but I am telling you a story is
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-much more powerful when you launch.
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Why you two in a garage knew there was a
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-better way to search.
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Or you wanted to bring personal computers
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-to more people.
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Or you wanted a place where people could
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upload videos of people dropping menthos
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into Diet Coke.
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(laughter)
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Whatever it is, tell a story
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The next thing is
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you need to plant many seeds
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This is completely contrary
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to classic marketing.
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Classic marketing is you plant a few seeds,
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because you know exactly who is going to
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embrace your product
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and you water and fertilize just those seeds.
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You focus.
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I think that's just completely wrong
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In the old days, you would focus on
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the A-Listers and the top tier journalists.
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I.E, Wall Street Journal
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New York Times
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Business Week
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Fortune and Forbes.
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What you did is, you sucked up to them
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because you hoped in these
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great oracles of wisdom and knowledge
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would embrace your product
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and tell the hoi polloi
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and the great unwashed masses to embrace
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your product.
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Okay, so you sucked up to them.
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If you didn't have time to suck up to them,
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you hired a PR firm and paid them
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ten thousand bucks to suck up for you.
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Then, the PR firm would hire an
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oriental art history from Wellesley to do the
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sucking up for you.
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Okay, this doesn't work anymore
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because the world has been inverted.
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The world has been inverted.
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And now, for you to reach critical mass
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with a product, it's not because the
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Wall Street Journal or the New York Times
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blessed your product. It's because
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lonelyboy15 embraced your product.
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and lonelyboy15 told his twenty friends,
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who told their twenty friends,
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who eventually told Tiffany517
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and lonelygirl to also embrace your product.
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And what happens- this is how Twitter
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and how Facebook happens.
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It's not because the New York Times
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saw Facebook, or Twitter
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on the first day they launched and said
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"Ha ha, we have seen the future
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-we know with total certainty some day
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Facebook will have more members
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than every other country except
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China and India.
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Show me a New York Times, Business Week,
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Fortune, or Forbes article that
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predicted the success of Twitter or Facebook.
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or Apple! or Yahoo!
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Pick any of the success stories, none of them.
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So what you need to do
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is plant many seeds.