Imagine Yesterday
There are many great stories about how companies built great products, grew their customer base or raised money. While many are quite inspiring, none will actually help you to do any of that.
You can analyze successes of others all day long, but the reality is — there are no recipes for these things. As there are no recipes on how to write either of the two hit songs referenced in the title of this article.
Here is a contemporary version of it: Adding “Hey, sexy lady” to your chorus won’t have any Gangnam style effect on your video clip.
All you need is words
My post “My cofounder said “I love what we’re doing” and we shut down our startup” was my first attempt at writing. Naturally, I had asked my friends to proofread it. Some fixed my grammar. Some suggested improving the flow. Some made sure I got approval from the individuals referenced in the story.
There was also another set of recommendations. They came from the marketing professionals in my network. All insisted that I work on my hero image and its alt tags, improve the title and SEO keywords. And if plugging Bugsee was critical, I must mention it early on, and not in the last chapter. (An inadvertently better plug this time).
Then I searched for blogging tips on the web. Again, tons of great resources out there, but many are focusing on the appearance, on the meta, on the superficial. Skipping the core. Often, missing it entirely.
It creates a dangerous illusion that all it takes to write a good blogpost is:
Create a bombastic title. Ideally, with a number in it. Add an intriguing hero image. Write exactly 1,700 words (for an ideal 7 min read). Use short simple sentences in small paragraphs. Add a funny gif at the end and don’t forget to ask for a recommendation. And of course, post it on a Tuesday.
However, here is a post by Justin Jackson. It illustrates brilliantly the most important, yet unquantifiable, quality of a great writing. A good story. Made of words.
It reminds me of Dale Carnegie’s power of the smile and how instrumental it is in influencing people. Couldn’t agree more. However, before smiling will have any impact, you must have something interesting to say.
Size doesn’t matter
Same applies to growth hacking. There are many articles on how to optimize your checkout flow and increase your conversion. Alas, chances are, there is little you can reuse in your business.
You may A/B test “Buy” vs. “Buy Now” on your checkout button. However, if your customers aren’t interested in your product — it won’t matter.
You may optimize the size and the location of your share button. However, if you do not have shareable content — it won’t matter. On the flip side, if you do have shareable content — people will find a way to share it.
Growth hacking and A/B testing are important only once you have a large user-base, where every percentage point uptick in conversion results in a significant impact. And then, only then, size and colors of the buttons start to matter. As well as timing of the push notifications.
Here is a quick write-up by Sara Haider that proves that point:
Jeff Lawson, fellow K9 Founder and CEO of Twilio, once said, “A/B testing executed to perfection will result in every website being a porn site”. So true. Your time is better spent building a hit product, that customers use and tell their friends about.
X matters
On the same note, a few years back, I came across this powerful image. Its message is crystal clear.
However, its message is also misleading. It omits a crucial element in the formula: the constant multiplying the base.
If you’re able to run just a single mile on New Years Eve, and stretch the distance daily by 1%, you’ll be able to finish a marathon on Thanksgiving. (Fun fact — literally).
If your business generates $1M ARR, and you’re able to increase the revenue by 1% every day, you’ll see an impressive $1M MRR in a mere 8.5 months.
However, if you have 10 daily active users today, and your engagement grows daily by 1%, you’ll have 14,276 DAU in two years. It’s not that interesting anymore. Leaving aside, that your business might not even survive the two years in the first place.
Thus, the more accurate formula should be:
X * 1.01 ^ 365 = 37.8 * X
X matters.
If X is too small — focus on that first. Exponential growth won’t save you. You need a stepping function.
Success recipes
There are none. All we know is the four required ingredients:
- Hard work
- Conviction
- Patience
- A bit of luck
While none are quantifiable, they all share the unique quality of the speed of light. They remain constant in every success story. All other factors are relative to the space and time of their occurrence.
Yet, I once attended a conference where a prominent speaker explained the meteoric success of WhatsApp. He attributed it to the human psychology, yearning for communication, the intimate nature of messaging, and the timing of push notifications. The claim seems quite plausible on its face.
However, here is what the speaker was forgetting in his analysis:
- There’re scores of other messaging apps with a similar feature set
- SMS existed a decade beforehand
- On the day WhatsApp was just born, we all were already sending billions of intimate SMS messages every single day
It was painful to see him reducing WhatsApp to a red notification indicator.
The speaker then explained how infinite scroll, with its easiness and addictiveness, was instrumental to Facebook and Instagram’s successes. Again, such a gross oversimplification of these services.
If you don’t believe me, add infinite scroll to your website or app — see if it helps. Or imagine what would have happened if Blockbuster.com had infinite scroll. Would it have saved them?
Back to the T.I.T.L.E.
Imagining the reasons for someone else’s yesterday’s success is easy. But it can’t buy you love. It’s the hard day’s nights, carrying that weight eight days a week that are hard.
It’s a magical mystery tour on the long and winding roads. With a little help from your friends. And then, only then, it might be getting better.
And one more thing: act naturally. Always.
And in the end
I’m not saying album covers or packaging aren’t important or easy to design. Nor I am saying that studying others’ work isn’t inspiring or necessarily a waste of time. My main point is — none of it will actually help you to compose a timeless piece. There are no recipes for that.
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Thank you for reading! If you found the post helpful, please recommend it to help others discover the story.
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