Book Short: Underdog Victorious The Underdog Advantage, by David Morey and Scott Miller, was a worthwhile read, though not a great book. It was a little shallow, and although I enjoyed its case studies (who doesn’t love hearing about Ben & Jerry’s, Southwest, JetBlue, Starbucks?), I didn’t feel like the authors did enough to tie the details of the success of the case study companies back to the points they made in the book. That said, the book had some great reminders in it for companies of all sizes and stages. The main point was that successful companies always think of themselves as the underdog, the insurgent, and never get complacent. They run themselves like a political campaign, needing to…
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Business
A Typepad User, and Proud of It
A Typepad User, and Proud of It SixApart showed huge corporate courage today when they emailed their entire blog user base, apologized (for the second or third time) for service interruptions the past month, then announced a cash remedy. As a default, they’re giving everyone half a month of service for free. This is obviously a huge hit to the company financially and probably more of a gesture than anyone expected. But better than that, they allowed users to click through to their web site and automatically get a full month for free — or a month and a half for free — if they felt in good conscience that the service outages were more harmful to them. They also…
Why Publishing Will Never Be the Same, Part II
Why Publishing Will Never Be the Same, Part II In Part I of this series, I talked about our experience at Return Path publishing a book back in January through a new type of print-on-demand, or self-publishing house called iUniverse and why I thought the publishing industry was in for a long, slow decline unless it changes its ways. We had another interesting experience with iUniverse more recently that reinforces this point. It turns out, although iUniverse is mainly a “self publisher,” they also have a traditional publishing model called their Star Program, which includes an editorial review process. The good news for us is that they contacted us and said they liked our book so much, and sales are…
A Small Rant About Lawyers
A Small Rant About Lawyers My least favorite thing about lawyers (and I don’t make that statement lightly) is when they spend more of your money arguing why they shouldn’t do something than they’d spend if they just sat down and did the darn thing to begin with. Hmmmph.
Why Publishing Will Never Be the Same, Part I
Why Publishing Will Never Be the Same, Part I As you may know, we published a book earlier this year at Return Path called Sign Me Up! Sales are going quite well, in case you’re wondering, and we also launched the book’s official web site, where you can subscribe to our “email best practices” newsletter. The process of publishing the book was fascinating and convinced me that publishing will never be the same. Even in two parts, this will be a long post, so apologies in advance. Front to back, the process went something like this: – We wrote the content and selected and prepared the graphics – We hired iUniverse to publish the book for a rough total cost…
Book short: Blink
Book short: Blink Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, is a must read for marketers, entrepreneurs, and VCs alike, just as is the case with Gladwell’s first book, The Tipping Point. Where The Tipping Point theorizes about how humans relate to each other and how fads start and flourish in our society, Blink theorizes about how humans make decisions and about the interplay between the subconscious, learned expertise, and real-time inputs. But Gladwell does more than theorize — he has plenty of real world examples which seem quite plausible, and he peppers the book with evidence from some (though hardly a complete coverage of relevant) scientific and quasi-scientific studies. Blink for Entrepreneurs/CEOs: What’s the most critical lesson in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, as…
Counter Cliche: Who’s The Dog in this Scenario?
Counter Cliche: Who’s The Dog in this Scenario? Fred’s VC cliche of the week is a good one — “If you lie down with dogs, you’ll come up with fleas.” His point is a good and simple one, that VCs shouldn’t take people risks in deals and shouldn’t try to back management teams they have serious concerns about (ethical or otherwise) in the hopes of trying to change the team or change management. The obvious counter cliche is that entrepreneurs run that same risk in accepting capital from less-than-savory venture investors. An ethically-challenged investor can wreak havoc on a young company, potentially tying the company up with peripheral legal problems or even damaging the company’s attempts at raising future rounds…
From Blog to Book – Beyond Bullets
From Blog to Book – Beyond Bullets Hats off to fellow blogger Cliff Atkinson, who has just published a book called Beyond Bullet Points. Cliff and his company, Sociable Media, consult on PowerPoint and presentations and have a great theory about how to do great presentations. They follow the “clear, simple, and please God not so boring” guidelines espoused by a number of us in the business world, including Brad and of course Seth. (BTW, if you haven’t read Seth’s e-book/treatise on Really Bad PowerPoint, you should do that as well, although I can’t find a link to it at the moment.) One of the coolest parts of the book is that it really started out as Cliff’s blog, Beyond…
Everyone's a Marketer, Part III
Everyone’s a Marketer, Part III Along the lines of my "Everyone’s a Marketer" series of postings, Seth Godin put a finer point on it today. If Everyone’s a Marketer, then you can easily make the case that the CEO is the CMO.
The Gift of Insight
The Gift of Insight Jonathan Schwartz has a great post entitled “Every Customer Visit is a Lesson.” It’s so true…if you want to give yourself a gift this holiday season, give yourself the gift of insight and spend some time in the market with a few of your top customers or prospects. I’ve always found that to be one of the most valuable ways to shape the business, both strategically and operationally. One of the most vivid memories I have to illustrate this concept is a meeting that I had with Crate and Barrel, a prospect, in the very early days of Return Path, back in 2000 or 2001. I went in with my colleague Sophie Miller, and with a…
Holiday Card Anon
Holiday Card Anon ‘Tis the season of the business holiday card. This is a nice enough tradition, but I received two cards this week that baffled me because I couldn’t tell who sent them to me. Really, if you’re going to send out holiday cards, the only requirement is to make sure the recipients know that YOU sent them! And not just by putting your name or company on the envelope (although that’s a help), as sometimes cards get opened and separated from their envelopes. Include a business card inside the card, or make sure your name is printed on the card itself, or make sure your signature is legible, or at the very least make sure your company name…