Category: Media

The Evan Williams formula for getting rich online

Evan WilliamsFrom a Wired review of an Evan Williams speech.

The main point: Stop creating things cause they’re new and cool. Instead, find something everyone OBVIOUSLY wants, see how they’re currently getting it, and make it easier, faster and cheaper.

…the internet is “a giant machine designed to give people what they want.”

Williams created Blogger and Twitter and will be a billionaire soon…so he knows how to give people what they want.

“We often think of the internet enables you to do new things,” Williams said. “But people just want to do the same things they’ve always done.”

The Internet will become a digital representation of the real world. If you carry that thinking far enough, we may cease to exist as physical organisms (see Tron).

Increasingly, everything that happens and everything we do, everyplace you go and check in, every thought you have and share, and every person who liked that thought… is all connected… and it keeps multiplying relentlessly.”

The Internet is about convenience, and convenience is speed and “cognitive ease”.

In other words, people don’t want to wait, and they don’t want to think — and the internet should respond to that.

See Google (finding things), Amazon (buying things), Apple (communicating things), and Facebook (also communicating things?).

The key to making a fortune online […] is to remove extra steps from common activities as he did with Blogger.

See also Uber (getting somewhere). Chris Sacca calls it closing the loop.

The Internet is not utopia. It’s more like…modern agriculture:

“[Agriculture] made life better. It not only got people fed, it freed them up to do many more things — to create art and invent things.”

Modern agriculture has downsides (eg, animal abuse, overeating, environmental damage) and so does the Internet (eg, mental health, media addiction).

A Dave McClure quote sums it up:

“Great companies do 1+ of 3 things: Get you LAID (= sex). Get you PAID (= money). Get you MADE (= power)”

1-Read-A-Day: what I learned running a newsletter, October edition

Every month, I share what I’ve learned running the 1-Read-A-Day newsletter. Here’s the first month.

How well is it doing?

  • Subscribers: 230 (only 10 new subs since September)
  • Open rate: 22.6%
  • Click rate: 2.5%
  • Most opened email: Lesson 5, Making Yourself a CEO by Ben Horowitz
  • Most clicked email: Lesson 39, How Mint beat Wesabe by Noah Kagan

What did I learn in October?

  • Readers were quiet this month. Several commented that they enjoyed the 10-question quiz after Lesson 50
  • I recorded three short audio summaries for Lessons 1, 2, and 3. Just experimentin’. They’re around a minute each. You can hear them by clicking the big blue button near the top
  • I published another 101, Startup Mistakes and Failures. 27 great links featuring Max Skibinsky, Siqi Chen, Derek Sivers, and more
  • I wish there was an easy, effective way to convert emails into blog posts. There are plugins that convert RSS feeds into emails, but I can’t find a good plugin to do the opposite. With email newsletters growing in popularity, I hope this problem is solved soon
  • I wish Mailchimp allowed me to better manage autoresponder emails in bulk. Right now, if I make a design change to one Lesson, I need to manually repeat that change more than 50 times!

What’s coming up

  • More 101s: Hiring, Product, and Stories
  • Once I hit 100 lessons, I’ll create a draft Startup Textbook (a well-designed PDF file featuring the 101s and the summaries). Hope we’ll be there by December
  • I haven’t marketed the newsletter (beyond blog posts and tweets), but subscribers are not growing (5% since September). I’ve been unwilling to make a big push, and I’m not sure why (perhaps I don’t think it’s good enough?)

Thanks to all subscribers for your feedback. It’s been a pleasure to do this. Here’s to showing up and getting to work. Cheers!

PS. If you run an email newsletter, I’d love to hear what you’re doing and what you’ve learned

Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling

A wonderful list from former Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coates (whose blog is wonderful too).

She tweeted them in 2011, and a fan created this set of matching graphics in 2013.

I wanted a simple text list for reference, so here it is. The lessons are timeless.

1. You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

2. You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.

3. Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.

4. Once upon a time there was _____. Every day, _____. One day _____. Because of that, _____. Because of that, _____. Until finally _____.

(I love #4)

5. Simply. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

6. What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

7. Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

8. Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.

9. When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

10. Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.

11. Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.

12. Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

13. Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.

14. Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.

15. If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

16. What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.

17. No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.

18. You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.

19. Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

20. Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?

21. You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?

22. What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

wait but why (are Gen Ys unhappy?)

The article explains why Gen Y yuppies (whom the author nicknames GYPSYs) are unhappy. It suggests 3 reasons:

1. Happiness = Reality – Expectations

We (GYPSYs) have unreasonably high expectations.

Our parents and grandparents’ generations had simpler goals: secure jobs, homeownership, a loving family.

The GYPSY needs a lot more from a career than a nice green lawn of prosperity and security. The fact is, a green lawn isn’t quite exceptional or unique enough for a GYPSY. Where the Baby Boomers wanted to live The American Dream, GYPSYs want to live Their Own Personal Dream.

wait but why(The stick-figure artwork is a plus)

According to Cal Newport, the phrase “follow your passion” barely existed 20 years ago!

This reality-expectations gap is made worse because…

2. GYPSYs think they’re special and unique

We not only have higher goals, but we measure success in comparison to everyone else. And there’s always someone smarter/richer/better-looking/etc

“Sure,” Lucy has been taught, “everyone will go and get themselves some fulfilling career, but I am unusually wonderful and as such, my career and life path will stand out amongst the crowd.” So on top of the generation as a whole having the bold goal of a flowery career lawn, each individual GYPSY thinks that he or she is destined for something even better—A shiny unicorn on top of the flowery lawn.

These comparisons are easier than ever to make, due to…

3. The downsides of social media

Social media creates a world for Lucy where A) what everyone else is doing is very out in the open, B) most people present an inflated version of their own existence, and C) the people who chime in the most about their careers are usually those whose careers (or relationships) are going the best, while struggling people tend not to broadcast their situation.

Their solution? Stay ambitious. Stop thinking you’re “special”. Ignore others’ success.

A fun read.

A (sarcastic?) reader comment:

This is pretty cool… except I am special. Call me a gypsy, but I studied a real major in college, went on to get my masters, had a 4.0 throughout, got my dream job, earn great money, have a smokin’ hot wife, a big house, nice car, a muscular physique and am smarter than most people I have ever known or met.

Thanks Alex for the find.

5 great articles – John McEnroe, Scott Weiss, Chris Dixon, Dr. Drew and The People’s Premier

Every article I read through the browser is shared via Clearly and a public Evernote notebook.

Since I doubt anybody checks it (on a regular basis, anyway), I wanted to step up the frequency of sharing interesting links, like what Seth Roberts and Tyler Cowan do with their Assorted Links.

Here are 5 recent articles I enjoyed:

  • Old article and my site may get blacklisted in China as a result, but former China Premier Wen Jiabao’s extended family is worth $2B. Hats off to NYT on great investigative reporting and ohhh, China
  • Beautifully written article on the tension between the pursuit of perfection and the management of one’s emotions featuring America’s favorite mercurial tennis player John McEnroe. I actually thought this famous outburst was overrated
  • 2 great posts from a16z’s Scott Weiss (former IronPort CEO and cofounder) on underlooked aspects of being the CEO: the need for tough feedback on a personal and board level. I really enjoy Scott’s ability to write in an upbeat tone while sharing much-needed truths
  • Chris Dixon with yet another short but thought-provoking piece on the macro-trend of digital content atomization. I’d add that, in such an environment, curation and synthesis become even more important (yes, that’s a self-serving remark :)
  • I’ve been hearing the word “grit” a lot lately. First from Dr. Drew and now popping up everywhere. As a predictor of career success, it’s the “new IQ” among the social science crowd