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If you read enough headlines, and it seems like every idiot with a hoodie and a half an idea is getting a million dollars to try it. But the reality is, less than one percent of entrepreneurs secure funding. Most of them are scrappy as hell, building projects around not waiting for the miracle, spending time, not dimes, working their faces off until their idea gains traction. Which is…

Anyone can make customers happy. But if you really want to be a hero, if you want to wow people’s pants off and get their mouths moving about your brand, you need a way to make the people who aren’t your customers wish they were. Here’s one that pays. Every day, people complain. Publicly. They tweet, blog, review or digitally kvetch about crappy service, disrespectful treatment, failed technology, lack…

Not every startup dies. Many come back reincarnated as something else. Flickr started out as as a multiplayer online game, but evolved into a photo management and sharing application. Amazon started out as a bookseller, but evolved into the planet’s biggest and best ecommerce retailer. MySpace started out as a social network, but evolved into an entertainment destination for performers. Nintendo started out as a playing card company, but…

A few weeks ago, my friend AJ Lawrence of The Jar Group said something that got my brain working. “Instead of making a cold call to customers, we make a warm zone around them.” He’s right. We desperately need a modern approach to new client acquisition.  It’s about courting. Instead of trying to make a sale to someone, earn the right to start a relationship with someone. It’s about…

Access to information is free, but access to each other is priceless. In a connection economy, if companies want to win loyalty beyond reason, they ought to create apps that help people meet each other, not just make them a less bored on the subway. They ought to create products that help people become better at something they care about, not just help them bookmark something cool. Humans are…

You can’t be a bystander in your career. Position yourself intelligently. Instead of showing up as a service provider, come in as a strategist so you’re treated as an equal partner, not a day laborer. Beat them to the punch. Instead of asking people what they want, show them you’re already doing what they need more of. Frame the context. Instead of selling an idea, sell people on the…

The amplification of effort has never been greater. The time of trial is always. Everything matters, everybody’s watching and everything’s a performance. And when we care, I mean really, really care, and do so with daily consistency, we will see greater residual value than ever before. A single tweet sent out in a moment of caring can erase the memory of every bad review every written. A single response…

Your job isn’t to be an entertainer, it’s to be an enabler. Instead of forcing consumers to consume your content, why not provide more power outlets and invite them to bring their own content? In so doing, you preserve customer control by creating tools that put them in the driver’s seat rather than in the back of the bus. In so doing, you stand out because the user experience…

The problem with Radiohead’s model is, it only works if you’re Radiohead. Without the coefficients of skill, smarts, fame, fans, time, money, history, resources, labor, luck, leverage and platform, their distribution equation doesn’t yield much for us lay folk. Most artists are, for the most part, winking in the dark. Even if we do offer our work for free, that doesn’t guarantee a spike in sales, an avalanche of…

In temperate rain forests, mosses, lichen and ferns cover most of the ground. This creates a highly dense forest floor, which makes it hard for seedlings to grow. Until a tree falls. Then everything changes. Known as nursery logs, these trees allow seedlings to germinate on their fallen, decaying trunks. They provide the foundation for the next generation. Thanks to their death, young plants can grow by sending their…