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Employees Suck
This presentation will start shortly.
(I promise it won’t suck)
This presentation can be downloaded from:
http://slideshare.net/johnbuckman
This presentation is under aCreative Commons by-sa 3.0 license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
I can be reached at:
john@magnatune.com
This speech is entitled:
Employees Suck
managing is no fun
Coordinatingtalented & motivated
people.
Now that’s fun.
firing is no fun
permanent employees are mostly
unneeded
changing circumstancesdemand
new skills
instead of retrainingemployees,
get new contractorsfor your current
projects.
but note:
virtual cooperation isvery difficult
Hollywood does fine without employees
Bosses suck even more
Nobody can work8h straight
Talented people are 10x more productive
but paid, at most, 3x as much
and normally they’re paid only 20% more
you’re usually paid lessthan your boss.
why!!?!?!
employee=
mostly dumb-work
employee=
very few satisfying tasks
why be clever?
why do your best work?
paid by the hour
rather than paid for your contribution
solution:
quit & make intellectual “goods”
solution:
and sell them for theirtrue value.
“good enough” is rewarded
when you’re anemployee
“great work” is rewardedwhen you’re
selling the product itself
Do you enjoy your life?
Do you enjoy your work?
Do you want kids?
Do you like learning?
Do you want to get paid for what your work is
actually worth?
Steps to self-employment
Think of lots of ideas.
Write them down.
Do nothing.
For a while.
3 months later, are they still good ideas?
Explain your best idea to a friend in a noisy place, while they’re drinking.
Do they have an instant positive reaction?
Next, think about your product.
Make an elevator pitch
Write the first line of your press release
Write the first paragraph of your home page
Make the home page
Hunt for unique names
Figure out how to do the idea really, really cheaply.
So cheaply that you don’t need anybody else’s money.
Show a mockup, then a demo, to people who might
buy it.
Launch before you’re ready.
Pitch bloggers.
If nobody cares, maybe your ideasucked.
Start again.
If your idea was good, all other problems are
solvable.
Don’t quit your day job.
If your idea starts to take off, slowly lower your day
job commitment
don’t quit until your idea is paying more than your day
job.
when you run your own company, you will
discover:
Salespeople are a bad idea
Fallacy:
“our product is great, it’s just not selling
because we don’t have any salespeople”
Good products build word of mouth, and sell
themselves.
Fallacy:
“our product is great, we just need PR and marketing to get the
word out”
If the product were great, your early users would blog that fact, and you’d be on your
way already.
The secret to getting massive press:
(1)
Be really interesting
(II)
Convince two influential bloggers that
you’re interesting.
P.R. secretfor
traditional print media
Focus on the freelancers, not staff
writers.
Be a cause a freelance writer would personally like.
Staff writers get assignments from their
editors.
Freelancers have to pitch stories to an editor to get paid.
A press blitz example.
Magnatune:
Creative Commons & Boing Boing ->The Inquirer ->
Fark ->Slashdot ->
USA today / NPR ->New York Times ->BBC / Le Monde /
Die Zeit / Nikkei Times
Magnatune story angles:
Fair use & Creative CommonsLabel embraces Sharing
Biz model in Peer to Peer realityPiracy used as a promotion toolIndie musicians abandoning labels
Not suing our customersMusicians actually getting paid
The big money is in music licensingMajor labels are EviliTunes has it wrong
Successful entrepreneur tries againLinux vs Microsoft == Magnatune vs Major Labels
the “elevator pitch”
they say:
“download, sample cut-up, share”
I say:
“remixing makes better music”
They say:
“On Jamendo artists allow anyone to
download and share their music. It's free, legal and unlimited.”
I say:
“Download tons of music from artists who
don’t want to make money”
Magnatune says:
“We are not evil”
“We work directly with independent musicians world-wide to give you downloads of MP3s and perfect-quality
WAV files. We never work with major labels, and our musicians always get 50%. You can listen to every album in
its entirety before buying or becoming a member. “
Magnatune says:
“We are not evil”
blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah... blah, blah,
blah... blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah...
blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah...
Whoops.
They say:
“Give books away,get books you want”
I say:
“Give a book away for free, and you can ask
someone to send you a book for free”
A good test:
“Will people pay more for this than it costs to create
it?”
Some final tips:
Dedibox.com is psycho-cheap hosting.
for French people only. Ha! Ha!
Use Open Source
Use PHP initially for everything.
Find €3000 for a good independent
graphic designer.
Make your home page pretty.
Do everything yourself.
If you’re not technical.
Learn to be technical.
PHP is not difficult.
Read tons of books.
Learn:sales, marketing, programming, tech support.
You can’t lead peopleif you don’t know how to
do their job.
Don’t hire.Until you are getting less than 6 hours’ sleep per
night.
Only hirefor well understood
tasks.
Don’t borrow money.
Without debt,your idea can fail and youcan try again next week.
Take small steps.
Give yourself 3 yearsto figure this out.
It will take at least 7 years to get decent at this and to
make any real money.
You can do it.
This presentation can be downloaded from:
http://slideshare.net/johnbuckman
Contact me at:john@magnatune.com
This presentation licensed underCreative Commons by-sa 3.0
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