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Oh dear - Dane Maxwell^ has a lot to answer for. First Nathan Barry (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5026251 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5026251), a

by scoot 14y ago

Oh dear - Dane Maxwell^ has a lot to answer for. First Nathan Barry (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5026251 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5026251), and now you. Regurgitation something you heard someone else promote as good business practice doesn't make it so. Have you actually done this? Were you successful? This isn't at all what Garrick is promoting, but rather that when when your MVP product crosses the threshold from M to V (so-to-speak), you'll be in a position to fulfill, and know you're on the right track. "the exact moment you have anything to sell – you’re ready to make that first sale" ^[For those that didn't come across Dane Maxwell's "The Foundation" during its marketing phase towards the end of lsat year, safe to say that if you're familiar with typical "information marketing" strategies, that is what make up the bulk of this "product", rounded out with a bit of idea and product development, and some rather incongruent self-help, group-hug conference calls slapped on. It isn't all bad, but someone who advocates skimming email addresses from web sites to send unsolicited commercial emails to, along with long-form sales pages, and pre-payment for non-existing products, has to approached with a degree of skepticism. With the exception of this info marketing product, Dane Maxwell's own track record in the methodology he promotes is limited at best.]

mnicole 14y ago
Similar to the Nathan Barry situation, I felt that the Execute book (touted as a book about getting a product out the door in a week, written in a week, but not available in any other format than print for two months) was equally asking way too much for the lack of information given. I wrote out this huge response to one of the designers and posted it on Dribbble, but deleted it after his response was merely "Thanks, we might do that later." Basically it dwindled down to "Why? Who are you? What have you done? You've proven nothing to me on this one page site, which isn't even attractive in itself. We don't even execute a product together, you tell me how you do it, but that assumes too much on my capabilities. Does this book expect me to know how to program? Does it expect me to know how to design?" Information on the book was spread across three different websites, the Table of Contents screenshot was just a mockup, and none of the sections seemed to be about actually doing something so much as "how it works for me." Well, I read enough "How x works for me," posts on the internet, and they are almost always pointless and subjective. Just really basic stuff that would have helped convince people that they were making a solid purchase. If you're asking for money up front, especially if you don't even have any idea what the final product is going to look like (i.e. the author scrapped the book with three out of the seven days he'd slotted and rewrote it), this is a minimum of what I'm expecting. Maybe I just don't want my readership to be suckers, I want them to be people who know what they're getting before they get it, as that will only help me spread the word and make more sales in the end.

by scoot 14y ago

mnicole 14y ago

Similar to the Nathan Barry situation, I felt that the Execute book (touted as a book about getting a product out the door in a week, written in a week, but not available in any other format than print for two months) was equally asking way too much for the lack of information given. I wrote out this huge response to one of the designers and posted it on Dribbble, but deleted it after his response was merely "Thanks, we might do that later." Basically it dwindled down to "Why? Who are you? What have you done? You've proven nothing to me on this one page site, which isn't even attractive in itself. We don't even execute a product together, you tell me how you do it, but that assumes too much on my capabilities. Does this book expect me to know how to program? Does it expect me to know how to design?" Information on the book was spread across three different websites, the Table of Contents screenshot was just a mockup, and none of the sections seemed to be about actually doing something so much as "how it works for me." Well, I read enough "How x works for me," posts on the internet, and they are almost always pointless and subjective. Just really basic stuff that would have helped convince people that they were making a solid purchase. If you're asking for money up front, especially if you don't even have any idea what the final product is going to look like (i.e. the author scrapped the book with three out of the seven days he'd slotted and rewrote it), this is a minimum of what I'm expecting. Maybe I just don't want my readership to be suckers, I want them to be people who know what they're getting before they get it, as that will only help me spread the word and make more sales in the end.