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So it seems people should try and get one of these magical Joanna devices that generates plenty of page views :) I think the article is a good example of how y

by tobtoh 16y ago

So it seems people should try and get one of these magical Joanna devices that generates plenty of page views :) I think the article is a good example of how you make your own luck and how no experience is a wasted. I have always liked Steve Jobs speech at Stanford (http://onemansblog.com/2010/02/01/steve-jobs-outstanding-stanford-commencement-speech-from-2005/ http://onemansblog.com/2010/02/01/steve-jobs-outstanding-sta...) which is along similar lines.

derefr 16y ago
More general advice: if you have some special talent—anything at all—then you can be someone's Joanna. Basically, you just have to "overachieve for marketing purposes." Don't give crap away for free, while only your paying customers get the 'real thing'; instead, make sure even the least of what you do—replying to comments on a forum, for example—is extremely polished. By-and-large, people's first impression of you will be through something you did for free, so make those first impressions great, and you'll make them want to see what paying you gets them. This advice also applies to companies. If you're an engineering-focused software company—i.e., a company that has building, not selling, in its genes—and you have a $1MM budget for advertising, don't spend it on a spread in the New York Times; instead, invest that money in building a product—like any other your company would build, for a client, for money—but then give that product away. If you built something that's really useful, it'll do a much better job of organically spreading your brand than any ad campaign ever could.
- justaguyb 16y ago
  Even if you build something great, and give it away, it'll still take time, effort and money to let people know that it exists and that it exists, that they should care, and that they should be impressed. If you build it, nobody will care. They won't come. If you build it, flog it for ages, and shove it down your market's throat, they might come.
- patio11 16y ago
  You don't have to share the product. Share the genes. A lot more people are interested in software development done right than in whatever your first product was. You can find any number of examples of this: FogCreek, for example, is mostly a company built on the premise that developing software should not have to suck. Their core product (which supports that premise) is not necessarily interesting to all people, but everything they do rightly gets the halo effect because they spent a decade improving the lives of engineers by sharing what they have discovered to work about running a software company. You could say similar things about 37Signals, Balsamiq, or a host of smaller companies that I look up to.

by tobtoh 16y ago

derefr 16y ago

More general advice: if you have some special talent—anything at all—then you can be someone's Joanna. Basically, you just have to "overachieve for marketing purposes." Don't give crap away for free, while only your paying customers get the 'real thing'; instead, make sure even the least of what you do—replying to comments on a forum, for example—is extremely polished. By-and-large, people's first impression of you will be through something you did for free, so make those first impressions great, and you'll make them want to see what paying you gets them. This advice also applies to companies. If you're an engineering-focused software company—i.e., a company that has building, not selling, in its genes—and you have a $1MM budget for advertising, don't spend it on a spread in the New York Times; instead, invest that money in building a product—like any other your company would build, for a client, for money—but then give that product away. If you built something that's really useful, it'll do a much better job of organically spreading your brand than any ad campaign ever could.

justaguyb 16y ago
Even if you build something great, and give it away, it'll still take time, effort and money to let people know that it exists and that it exists, that they should care, and that they should be impressed. If you build it, nobody will care. They won't come. If you build it, flog it for ages, and shove it down your market's throat, they might come.
patio11 16y ago
You don't have to share the product. Share the genes. A lot more people are interested in software development done right than in whatever your first product was. You can find any number of examples of this: FogCreek, for example, is mostly a company built on the premise that developing software should not have to suck. Their core product (which supports that premise) is not necessarily interesting to all people, but everything they do rightly gets the halo effect because they spent a decade improving the lives of engineers by sharing what they have discovered to work about running a software company. You could say similar things about 37Signals, Balsamiq, or a host of smaller companies that I look up to.