“Focus on value creation. Design enhances value, it does not create it. Stop creating shitty startups that look amazing. […] Stop this cycle of creating beautiful novelties, getting your 15 minutes, then disappearing. Create value.”
…money can be a lot of things. It can be something that is hoarded, fought over, protected, stolen and withheld. Or it can be like an energy, fueled by the desire, will, creative interest, need to laugh, of large groups of people.”
“The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website. As of Today, we’ve sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over $500,000. Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a profit around $200,000 (after taxes $75.58). This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video.”
In the future we won’t easily remember how big of a shift this was.
I’m learning […] a HUGE amount with this web experiment. This live at the beacon thing (available at louisck.com for 5 bucks) is like that thing in the movie “Twisiter” where they send a bunch of little data collecting balls up into a tornado and just download the lovely results. The whole thing has been like that. From the moment it went online and I saw the result of every decision I made. the last question the web guys asked me before we posted was if I wanted the mail list button defaulted to “opt in” or “opt out” and i said start it at opt out. It’s such a tiny thing but I keep hearing about it from people. So so interesting to watch this grow.’
I wrote previously about how Louis C.K. self-published his latest comedy special. One of the challenges and interesting pieces of his offer is that it would be so easy to torrent. Louis answered questions on Reddit and here’s a good question and answer about how Louis feels about the torrenting thing. (more…)
Believe in your fucking self. Stay up all fucking night. Work outside of your fucking habits. Know when to fucking speak up. Fucking collaborate. Don’t fucking procrastinate. Get over your fucking self. Keep fucking learning. Form follows fucking function. A computer is a Lite-Brite for bad fucking ideas. Find fucking inspiration everywhere. Fucking network. Educate your fucking client. Trust your fucking gut. Ask for fucking help. Make it fucking sustainable. Question fucking everything. Have a fucking concept. Learn to take some fucking criticism. Make me fucking care. Use fucking spell check. Do your fucking research. Sketch more fucking ideas. The problem contains the fucking solution. Think about all the fucking possibilities.”
Good design is constant contact”
… anybody can have an idea, but not everybody has the perseverance to execute. Usually success comes long after you expect it, when you’re running on fumes, when there are just enough crumbs to keep you going, but everybody else laughs and tells you to give up.”
Dan Frommer wrote an excellent list of what are essentially the ethics at the heart of a site he’s recently begun. These are good ethics. I like these ethics. I’m on board with this. I’ve summarized them below, but you should go read 10 steps to better blogging. (more…)
Embrace the fact that you have less time – you’re going to get a lot more stuff done.”
Jason Fried at SXSW 2006