What Every Entrepreneur Could Learn from Justin Bieber
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
1) An article with "Justin Bieber" in the title hits HN, or
2) I click on it, or
3) I read the whole thing, or
4) It was actually worth reading.
Not bad Mark Suster... not bad at all.
Refuge in audacity.
It's still a good article - be talented, work hard, get mentors, build an audience and engage with them.
Like all business articles, it's not really hard facts. It's sloppy stories, that helps you learn through osmosis.
You learn from stories, because you feel emotion, and they trigger the part of your brain that says "I can do that too!" (not totally scientific explanation). They aren't about hard facts though.
I've seen people with seemingly NO talent for music or coding or whatever turn themselves into virtuosos because they WANTED it. It seems like saying "You need talent" is a way to tell people that "it's okay that you're not trying, because you might not be talented in this area". And that's bullshit.
It's much easier to get good at something you have a natural inclination towards. This does not mean that talent is a prerequisite for getting good at something.
And besides, having talent is like having a small head start in a marathon. You may start faster but that doesn't mean you'll finish faster.
Physical is easier to measure, but mental is just as real.
Natural talent counts for something, but it's not going to make you a success. I saw "result = talent * effort" mentioned on the last HN post about this, and I thought it was pretty accurate.
Also, and I don't know whether this is the case with your ex, it's entirely possible that she was better at art because she'd been idly drawing over the years. I've certainly known people who wouldn't call themselves artists whose default idle activity is to sketch away on a piece of paper. They're vastly better than me, because they've been practicing in a low-key way for years.
Natural talent just gives you a head start on others. Someone willing to put in more effort than you can still be better than you.
I suppose this may break down around the limits of a field, especially one rooted in physical activity. E.g. Michael Phelps seems to be nearly perfectly physically adapted for swimming. If he never practiced then he'd be easily outswum by anyone half-decent... but by putting in massive effort training he reaches a point where he's practically unbeatable.
The internet seems to have the power to bring anyone to superstardom, but most of the time that happens accidentally or is done clumsily. What if a talented programmer with a knack for marketing took a few years off to learn how to act, sing and dance (and to get few plastic surgeries ;)) and then promoted themselves on the internet? Next time I find myself without anything to do for a few years I'll make sure to try that :) And I'm only half-kidding.
Please excuse me now, we're going on a company excursion to see this movie.
You mean Jonathan Coulton?
...and then he makes up for it by selling concerts and merchandise and now this movie, and he seems to be doing just fine.
But this business model is extremely disruptive, this is the exact opposite of what the recording industry wants and preaches. They want people to keep paying for the music again and again, and stop people from sharing.
I hope that the 1.3 billion views on YouTube can make more artists reconsider, and start giving away their music for free, and move to a business model that doesn't rely on copyright.
What about giving some friggin' facts for a change, instead of same old tired, rehashed, syrupy story not even good enough for Cosmopolitan magazine?
It's sad for social media, but impressive of publishers. Looks like they still have something to offer.
Seems like a social media success story to me.
Also, there's a big difference between a publisher and a coach or agent or manager or assistant or tutor.
It would be cool if social media replaced published. "Co-opted" is a technical term in disruption, meaning that the incumbents absorb the new approach instead of being replaced (i.e. disrupted) by them. At one time, there was a lot of talk about "disintermediation", where publishers and other middlemen between producer and consumer would disappear. That hasn't happened. The closest is iTunes and amazon, which disrupted retailers.
Although there is a long-tail, where it presumably is happening, it seems that we still need filters. Even more so, people often want whatever everybody else wants, just because they want it. They want to fit in, conform, be part of something greater than themselves, rather than be themselves. This is possibly (I have no idea) most true of Mr. Biebers' primary demographic, tween girls. This popularity for its own sake is where centralized music publishers are strongest, and disintermediated serving of the long-tail is weakest.
The message is: be super talented, be lucky, work your butt off, and then you're set. Pretty superficial article -- I am disappointed by the lack of irony...