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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 a Creative 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
Coordinating talented & motivated people.
Now that’s fun.
firing is no fun
permanent employees are mostly unneeded
changing circumstances demand new skills
instead of retraining employees, get new contractors for your current projects.
but note: virtual cooperation is very difficult
Hollywood does fine without employees
Bosses suck even more
Nobody can work 8h 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 less than 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 their true value.
“good enough” is rewarded when you’re an employee
“great work” is rewarded when 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 idea sucked.
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. secret for 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 -> ...
Magnatune story angles: Fair use & Creative Commons Label embraces Sharing Biz model in ...
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 downlo...
Magnatune says: “We are not evil” blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah... blah, bl...
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 people if you don’t know how to do their job.
Don’t hire. Until you are getting less than 6 hours’ sleep per night.
Only hire for well understood tasks.
Don’t borrow money.
Without debt, your idea can fail and you can try again next week.
Take small steps.
Give yourself 3 years to 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: ...
I say: “Download tons of
I say: “Download tons of
I say: “Download tons of
I say: “Download tons of
I say: “Download tons of
I say: “Download tons of
I say: “Download tons of
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I say: “Download tons of Employees Suck

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I say:

“Download tons of
music from artists who
don’t want to make
money”

Published in: Career, Entertainment & Humor, Business
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