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Seth Godin stories, thoughts and facts

Seth Godin stories, thoughts and facts

Startup Space/General · March 20, 2019 at 3:00pm

Stefan Smiljkovic

@kinderminderTeam
rep
996

Seth Godin stories, thoughts and facts

Startup Space / General · March 20, 2019 at 3:00pm
seth godin.jpeg

In this thread, from time to time I will share hand picked Seth Godin stories, thoughts or videos which I find valuable.

Seth is writer, but not the usual one. He write a blog post every single day, for who knows how long. Actually in one of his 7,000 blog post which was published on Nov. 6 2017, he said that he is writing for decades. Which if we do simple math, means he is writing a blog post every day for more than 20 years 😮.

The blog contains more than 2,700,000 words, delivering the equivalent of more than thirty full-length books.

"Write like you talk AND write every day"

Seth's Biography

Seth Godin is an American author, entrepreneur, marketer and public speaker who has written 17 bestsellers on topics like, post-industrial revolution, marketing, leadership, etc.
He started ‘Yoyodyne’, one of the first Internet-based direct-marketing firms, with revolutionary ideas on how companies should reach their target audiences. The publicity of his firm compelled big companies like Volvo, Microsoft, Sony Music, etc. to associate with it and in a few years ‘Yahoo!’ bought the company and kept Godin on as a vice president of permission marketing.

Best Seth Godin Books

  • This is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn To See (Amazon)
  • Tribes (Amazon)
  • Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable (Amazon)
  • The Dip: The extraordinary benefits of knowing when to quit (and when to stick) (Amazon)
  • Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? (Amazon)
  • All Marketers are Liars (Amazon)
  • Permission Marketing (Amazon)
  • Icarus Deception How High Will You Fly (Amazon)
  • Poke the Box: When Was the Last Time You Did Something for the First Time? (Amazon)

Thread will be updated ...

He is rare, so that's why I decided to have one dedicated thread for Seth.

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April 6, 2019 at 4:52am
Stefan Smiljkovic@kinderminder
Team
4:52am

“I was wrong”

That’s a hard sell.

It’s difficult to get someone (a client, a boss, a voter, a partner) to say those three words. Difficult to say on our own behalf, too.

Which is why we so easily get stuck.

We get stuck defending what we already decided. Because it feels easier to defend than it does to be wrong.

In 1993, in my role as founder of an internet company, I rejected the idea of the world wide web. I saw Mosaic (and then Netscape) and decided it was stupid, a dead end, a technology not worthy of our tiny company’s time.

That decision cost me a billion dollars.

Within nine months, I saw what others were seeing. I saw the power of widespread connectivity and how it was more powerful than a centralized host.

It still wasn’t easy to say, “I was wrong.”

The alternative is, “based on new information, I can make a new decision.”

We can make a new decision on what’s happening to our environment, based on new data and new science. We can make a new decision on corporate governance or on a recent political referendum.

“Why didn’t you tell me that it would lead to all these bad outcomes?”

Not wrong, simply underinformed.

The cost of a do-over is often less than the cost of sticking with a decision that was made in good faith, on insufficient information.

We don’t have to be wrong. But we regularly get a chance to make things more right.

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    April 18, 2019 at 1:46pm
    Stefan Smiljkovic@kinderminder
    Team
    1:46pm

    Dancing with infinity

    If your little bagel shop suddenly had everyone in the world waiting in line to buy a bagel, that would be stressful indeed. You’d need riot police to keep order and you’d run out of sesame seeds in no time.

    On the other hand, it’s easy to hope that your YouTube video, your Facebook post or your professionally published book be seen by everyone in the entire world. Because digital scales. Because there’s apparently no useful limit. Because you believe in it and more is better.

    But more isn’t always better.

    Better is better.

    And better might mean more specific. More respected. More exclusive. More trusted. More cherished.

    Dancing with infinity isn’t free, and if you do it too long, it’s corrosive. You’re busy being busy, instead of doing what’s important.

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      May 1, 2019 at 4:57pm
      Stefan Smiljkovic@kinderminder
      Team
      4:57pm

      Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time

      John Cage pointed out they’re different processes. Doing one will interfere with the other.

      What will you create today? You can analyze it tomorrow.

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        May 4, 2019 at 4:32pm
        Stefan Smiljkovic@kinderminder
        Team
        4:32pm

        Consider A/J testing

        The problem with A/B testing is that people don’t like to fail.

        So they test option A against option B, where both options are quite similar.

        Blue boxes vs. green boxes. $199 vs. $205.

        Why not spend some time on A/J testing instead?

        Test radically different alternatives.

        Test eliminating the entrance fee. Test increasing the price 400%. Test making the movie thirty minutes long, or five hours…

        You won’t be surprised very often, but when you are, bingo.

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          August 16, 2019 at 9:23am
          Stefan Smiljkovic@kinderminder
          Team
          9:23am

          Toward full stack

          Find the right clients

          Earn their attention and trust

          Identify the problem

          Find their fear, embrace their objectives

          Prototype possible solutions

          Create an architecture that supports your solution to the problem

          Build a minimum viable solution

          Test it

          Program a well-documented, resilient piece of code

          Test it

          Debug it

          Ship it

          It’s easy to get distracted by the part of the stack that we consider to be our job or simply our expertise. But it’s all connected.

            Edited
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            October 1, 2019 at 9:59am
            Stefan Smiljkovic@kinderminder
            Team
            9:59am

            If you want to change minds…

            If you want to change the mind of a scientist, do more science. Do better science. Get your hands on the data set and prove your assertions.

            If you want to change the mind of a bureaucrat, bring more power.

            If you want to change the minds of the nerds, build something that’s new.

            If you want to change the mind of a teenager, amplify the other teenagers.

            If you want to change the mind of the audience, put more emotion into your story.

            If you want to change the mind of a believer, bring in the perceived authorities.

            If you want to change the mind of a banker, eliminate risk.

            If you want to change the mind of an engineer, build a prototype.

            If you want to change the mind of a hustler, show the money.

            If you want to change the mind of a sports fan, win the game.

            Other people don’t believe what you believe, and they don’t see what you see.

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