AnonJian

...Visiting Xerox PARC probably wasn't just a big waste of time. Gates was one of the less well known visitors.

...Gary Kildall -- the guy IBM tried to meet up with -- developer of CP/M the most popular operating system in the world of 8-bit microcomputers. Therein lies a story.

Astonishing when you see the brain farts turned business fling, clear nobody put in much effort or thought. Yet they hang onto the McGuffin like they actually tried.

You would have done well to at least mention how many successes were 'pivots.' Expressly examples that canceling a project in no way, shape or form means giving up.

On the other hand, wantrepreneurs have a genuine talent for taking any advice then twisting it so they can screw themselves over. They'll always find a way to snatch failure from the jaws of victory. Bless their hearts.

what does history teach us?

Past performance is no indicator of future profit. Trees don't grow to the sky.

Completely optional, usually only presented at the POS, not pushed at all and easily ignored. As is the wantrepreneur push to make mountains out of mole hills and call that a business opportunity.

You can become rich when you develop some tolerance for reality. So let us get on with that.

What Is the Real Survival Rate of Franchised Businesses? What a reasonably bright eighth-grader could apply homework skills and find. But when is there ever an eighth-grade student around when you need them?

You have been institutionalized for an embarrassing number of years, K-12 at taxpayer expense. Please don't make the nice taxpayers cry.

It may work the way the video portrays. And there is nothing 'wrong' with the video -- technically speaking. However, you don't state the purpose or target audience for this video, nor at which point it is to be used.

The video assumes the visitor is completely converted into a customer at the point of watching. Fine if that is the case and adequately suited to task. Not if you're using this video for the purpose of conversion, promotion, or introduction.

In that case, it is typical tehno-wonkism, and suggests the company has a disdain for the marketing function. It's way too boring for anybody who isn't completely converted and using the app. As explicitly stated in the video, it is a how-to of features without benefits.

I always suggest two things. Any agency should be able to write a book about their value proposition, differentiating from competitors. The other is really be "done with that." Cut out the client entirely and do what is called eating your own dog food.

Take your own advice. Sell your own stuff -- and no, not how-to about digital marketoiding. Real product or service. Real market demand. Your results are your pay.

A genuine test of the prowess most boast of is cutting out the middle-men and doing regular business. Then you eliminate all the problems with every know-nothing.

First off, this question gets asked every few hours. Next, success is an equal mixture of problem, ability, and knowledge ...of the domain a solution must work within to qualify as a genuine fix. Nobody seems to get that.

I suppose a newbie would figure being the ultimate outsider is some kind of off-kilter advantage. Best show some respect to any problem existing in the now, with eight billion people scrambling to buy the crotchfruit that hot Christmas gift.

People are going to flock to your cause with an established track record of having banished real problems, for real people. Otherwise, you're just one of millions calling what they do a fix without any proof.

What Are Your Tier 1 Problems? Figure out what swiping up does, crawl before you walk. One dipshit actually bitch -- with all of that -- I didn't update the list of lists. He failed to grasp the point. Much as the people who thought they'd just trot on over and fix the US healthcare system ...because it would make a nice bullet point on a résumé.

What's the pitch here, "I can help. Mom said I could?"

It's always difficult to advise when it's about whipping out your bliss and playing with it in public. Plenty of people have been shocked the positive comments they receive were never accompanied by any money.

My product validation is completely different then real results. Advice?

Need a bit of help; Created an amazing product, posted some images on social media, all the feedback has been extremely positive... but ZERO sales. How do I change this?

How To Crash Your Startup

So shocked they write "zero" in all capital letters. Point being, from a pure business standpoint it will be very difficult to monetize at any more than ramen level. What you actually decide is up to your preference for keeping this going.

All of them are good. And people who have achieved success could understand the problems and figure out anything that seems confusing. Newbies, well ...not so much. They tend to take instructions much as a buffet, choosing this or that crumb based on 'newbie tingle' then rewriting the rest to suit preconceived notions.

Like PayPal didn't have competition. Or Lean Startup endorses Build It And They Will Come. Heck I can't even get the impression people know what "lean" or "minimal" or "viable" mean from their posts. It is bizarre.

And you ain't helping. You get it that this exercise is dependent on using your words, right? No matter. This goes much faster when OP plays no role. Got twenty minutes?

Customer versus Product Development lays out the theory -- completely compatible with lean. This is roughly the same online or offline, wait for the passage "...Toyota was doing this before anybody..." Basic diagram. Mostly small words. Shows a procedure to follow. (That's that thing where you don't edit the parts you don't like completely out -- then complain about the inevitable here.)

3 Awesome Minimum Viable Products are only awesome because they didn't get it completely ass-backwards with the wantrepreneur misinterpretation: How To Crash Your Startup.

The Business Model Canvas -- 9 Steps to Creating a Successful Business Model is compatible with the books. If you just put a checkmark in each box, you're doing it wrong.

The only problem with reading a bunch of books is invariably wantrepreneurs throw up their hands in mock confusion ... then do what they would have done without reading the books. They waste their time but feel really good about it.

Thanks, zombie.

Congratulations. If I understand what you wrote -- you created postage. People have known this for some time -- 'spam' was a nuisance long before the popular modern internet -- and there are nuances to making it work you haven't mentioned.

The only place I know this to be a working solution is corporate nets. Where it curtails the tendency for cover-your-ass rampant CC inclusions.

This is so old I no longer own the books it was written in. It was a popular proposal in the 1990's.

You want more benefits for this to be any commercial product sold to a general public. Ideally, the way to get a prototype up-and-running is to start an online community -- just like Reddit -- then work out the nuances I mentioned but won't tell you about.

Included in that process would have to be, oh I dunno, becoming a better marketer by one order of magnitude or thereabouts. And perhaps only one hundred times better at eighth-grade homework skill, which then qualifies you to begin research.

I have always imagined potential for wider acceptance of a modernized reimagining of postage. And I can think of a hundred interesting experiments to prove out in a working prototype. A genuine pity you do not seem to be the one to execute on this -- at all.

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Postage Due — for your corporate e-mail as always, potential without any interesting actuality. This needs to be thoroughly rethought to have appeal for the 'free internet' folk.