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MJ DeMarco

I followed the science; all I found was money.
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New on my YouTube channel...

The keys to "printing money" and my "unofficial" test of heavy advertisers!

 
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D

Deleted50669

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New on my YouTube channel...

The keys to "printing money" and my "unofficial" test of heavy advertisers!

It's so true that when you enter the right mindset committing to one idea of the constant influx of ideas requires serious discipline. That's been the hardest thing for me so far, but I think I'm finally developing the patience to be committed to one product.

Excellent video, MJ. Thank you!
 

socaldude

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That's been the hardest thing for me so far, but I think I'm finally developing the patience to be committed to one product

When I think of this I think of how I play poker. You wouldn't spread out your bets over a bunch of hands just for diversification. You find your one hand, assess the risks and go all in.

Real entrepreneurs assess risk, predict outcomes and simultaneously take into account relevant casual variables. Somebody who dives into different opportunities has not done that.

If you were to express opportunities in terms of net present values and probabilities of success you wouldn't spend any time on anything other than the one that has high expected value and high probability of outcome.

Somebody who doesn't do that is somebody who does not know how to predict outcomes or represent things mathematically. In other words,

I think 90% of the battle in being a success is knowing how to think correctly both quantitatively and qualitatively simultaneously. Which sadly our education system does poorly in doing.

I know this is the correct way of thinking about it because if you weigh it with the opposite: Spread your efforts into different ideas! this makes more sense.
 
D

Deleted50669

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When I think of this I think of how I play poker. You wouldn't spread out your bets over a bunch of hands just for diversification. You find your one hand, assess the risks and go all in.

Real entrepreneurs assess risk, predict outcomes and simultaneously take into account relevant casual variables. Somebody who dives into different opportunities has not done that.

If you were to express opportunities in terms of net present values and probabilities of success you wouldn't spend any time on anything other than the one that has high expected value and high probability of outcome.

Somebody who doesn't do that is somebody who does not know how to predict outcomes or represent things mathematically. In other words,

I think 90% of the battle in being a success is knowing how to think correctly both quantitatively and qualitatively simultaneously. Which sadly our education system does poorly in doing.

I know this is the correct way of thinking about it because if you weigh it with the opposite: Spread your efforts into different ideas! this makes more sense.

That is correct; I've never been required to think this way, and I wasted money on a masters. It seems like one of those lessons you learn after taking a hard thump from mistakes, unfortunately. Unless you have the right mentor early on, which most do not.

Still, I am grateful MJ's book mentored me when it did, long before I got attached to my career. My current goal is to finish development of all product content and legal requirements before 2019 (an aggressive timeline for what I'm doing). But it feels good knowing all my eggs are going into one basket.
 
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Argue

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Excellent points, MJ.

Key takeaways:
  • Value skew
  • Act, assess, adjust (3A model from unscripted )
  • 1 + 1 = 3
  • Value competition (goes more in depth, next video)
  • Distinctive value (productocracy)
  • Companies that spend heavily (~$1 million) on marketing are NOT productocracies.
  • C.E.N.T.S.
Examples of a productocracy:
  • Fortnite
  • Hennessy
  • The Millionaire Fastlane
  • UBER (imo)
  • Slack
  • Poland Spring
  • Nature Valley Granola
  • Etc
 

CPisHere

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The industries that spend the most on advertising are insanely profitable and powerful, even when their products suck. Pharmaceuticals for instance. So it's not that these are bad businesses to be in, but that they are impossible to compete with unless you are equally well capitalized, or perhaps find a different path to the customer.

A productocracy is what allows you to scale and make good margins without tons of investor money.
 
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CRAsian

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Excellent points, MJ.

Key takeaways:
  • Value skew
  • Act, assess, adjust (3A model from unscripted )
  • 1 + 1 = 3
  • Value competition (goes more in depth, next video)
  • Distinctive value (productocracy)
  • Companies that spend heavily (~$1 million) on marketing are NOT productocracies.
  • C.E.N.T.S.
Examples of a productocracy:
  • Fortnite
  • Hennessy
  • The Millionaire Fastlane
  • UBER (imo)
  • Slack
  • Poland Spring
  • Nature Valley Granola
  • Etc

Thanks for laying out the takeaways and examples - the only part that I think is incorrect is:

“Companies that spend heavily (~$1 million) on marketing are NOT productocracies

I think MJ is referring to companies that only do marketing without any other customer acquisition channels (ex. word of mouth/referrals). Some of the companies you listed above as productocracies clearly spend way more than $1m on some form of marketing for their businesses, such as Uber and Hennessy.
 

Matt Dassel

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MJ this video gave me an interesting insight...

Most ideas I have don't really fit under that productocracy title. It just looks like something that would work, yeah, but how tempted would I be if months from now I found something else that looks like a lot better an opportunity? I always think I would drop these ideias.

My best approach against it has been this. I am going into innovation, going completely alone and creating a trend. If it is a product I can pre-sell, I'll take the risk of doing it on small scale.

So, sometimes it feels confusing to see many things that could be done but when I really ask the question "Is this really the real business to consolidate myself into the fastlane?" I think not. I think would have to go to another one.

I am honestly thinking this way to try to save as much time as I can. I could imagine how a Fastlane idea feels in the gut. All the numbers and possibilities coming up. I wouldn't even sleep properly thinking about work.
 

MJ DeMarco

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Bekit

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Just ran across a stunning example of this, in a product as simple as chalk.

One company, Hagoromo, skewed value on chalkboard chalk. Their product was so much better than any other version of chalk on the market that it attracted a cult-like following.

Watch these mathematics professors wax lyrical on the virtues of this chalk...
  • "I assume the special ingredient was angel tears."
  • "As soon as I used it, I was a convert."
  • "The chalk is one of the best-kept secrets in the math world."
  • "It's the Rolls Royce of chalk."
  • "The way it flows on a board is a bit hard to describe in words."
  • "It's the densest, it erases the cleanest, and it leaves the nicest line."

As @MJ DeMarco says in his video, when you have a productocracy, you don't have to advertise.

That was the case with this chalk. Not only was it not advertised - it was hard to get. You had to go to Japan for it. And yet, its popularity exploded, one convert at a time.

When word got out that the product would be discontinued, fans of the chalk considered this the "chalk apocalypse." They started hoarding it. The ones who had a stash became chalk dealers once it became unavailable on the market.

That's what it looks like when you have a productocracy.

What productocracies can the forum come up with for simple, everyday items that we use all the time?

It's easy to become blind to everyday items and assume they're already the best they can be. "Chalk is chalk, right?" Not so fast...

How could we exercise a bit more imagination to see the value that could skew in an item?

What productocracies are right under our noses, that everyone has overlooked all this time, that are just waiting for the right person to execute magnificently?
 

MJ DeMarco

I followed the science; all I found was money.
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When word got out that the product would be discontinued, fans of the chalk considered this the "chalk apocalypse." They started hoarding it. The ones who had a stash became chalk dealers once it became unavailable on the market.

Wonder what the inside story is? A productocracy usually is profitable, and certainly they aren't discontinued as users demand its continuation, as what happened in this case.
 

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