Youth Soccer Flash Cards

I coached ~ten seasons of youth soccer. I created the flashcards below for nine-year-olds. However, I have found that most of the cards can be used with older kids.

The Flashcards serve three purposes:

• They remind me, as the coach, of the three to five things I want to emphasize each week.

• Kids readily, easily, and eagerly buy into the method of using three letters (ABM, ABT, UBG, etc.) to learn and to receive continuous coaching.

• Parents can use the flashcards to emphasize what's important to the team.

There are four flashcard categories:

1. The Ultimate Soccer Player

2. Success Tips

3. Attacking Tips

4. Defending Tips

5. Keeper Tips

Here are all of the flashcards below on Google Docs.

The Ultimate Soccer Player

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Always Be Smiling

We are here to have fun!

Smiles are infectious! Smile for your teammates, for your coaches, and at your opponents.

Always Be Talking

Be a field general!

Always let your teammates know your intentions by calling out plays and/or by asking for the ball.

Always Be Moving

If you are standing still, you are probably doing something wrong 😀 Always be moving FAST to the best space on the field to receive or to intercept a pass.

Always Be Practicing

Jump rope, dribble, juggle, and shoot every day. Use your weak foot more than your strong. Stay fit and strong all year long.

Success Tips

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Use The Force

NO WILD KICKING

settle, inhale, look, exhale, kick

Play Your Position

Don’t run all over the field, you will be exhausted by halftime. Focus on dominating your portion of the field. Don’t be crossing from left to right, or right to left. Stay on your side of the field.

Use Ball Gravity

When you control the ball, sometimes it makes sense to MAKE the opponent come to you. This is called “using ball gravity” to pull the opponent into a weaker field position.

Win Every Throw-In

Everyone moves fast toward the throw-in area, and then we make smart throws fast! When defending, we cover our opponents like a WET blanket.

No Field Drama

If you are hurt, stay down! If you are frustrated or mad at yourself for making a mistake, get up, smile, and find the best space on the field to be. No pounding the ground. Your team needs you!

Always Be Moving

Players are assigned a position; each position has a coverage area* (Right Wing shown in green); players are coached to always be moving (ABM) within their coverage area.

We measure motivation by observing what happens before and after touching the ball. We tell players to NEVER touch and stop; when the ball is in your coverage area, repeatedly go after it; or rapidly go to the best place in your coverage area to receive or to intercept a pass.

*Depending on skill, speed, and stamina, we let players ‘lengthen’ their coverage areas.

Hold Your Shape

Every formation has a shape. As the ball moves up and down the field, the formation should hold its shape. Even when everyone is packed near the box, the formation should hold its shape!

Attacking Tips

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Create Elephant Space

On attack, Always Be Moving (ABM) to Create Elephant Spaces (CES) between you and every defender. Elephant spaces are big enough for an elephant to walk through!

Avoid The Middle

When driving the ball toward the opponents end of the field, don't play through the middle (that’s where everyone will be). Drive the ball to the corners and cross it!

Superheroes Get Stuffed!

Superheroes that try to drive the ball through multiple defenders always get stuffed. Don’t get stuffed. Play to the corners and cross the ball to your teammate.

Attack Together!

Don’t be left behind! Every attacker should be moving forward as fast as the attacker with the ball.

Follow Your Shot

Don’t stop after shooting on goal. Follow your shot all the way to the goalie.

Flip The Field

Attackers with the ball always attract traffic. If you have elephant space, sometimes the best decision is to kick the ball to the opposite side of the field.

Defending Tips

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Show A Shoulder

When approaching an attacker that has the ball, show your right shoulder to steer the attacker left. Show your left shoulder to steer the attacker right.

Don’t Dive In

First, use the shape and position of your body to force the attacker into the weakest possible position…then go for the ball.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Cover Your Attacker

If we are not attacking, we are ALL defending! If the other team has possession of the ball, everyone’s job is to cover any attacker that is in their coverage area.

Defeat The Cross

Good teams know how to cross and score. The Left Defender must cover the left side of the box, and the Right Defender must cover the right side of the box. Stay on your side. PYP.

Defend Never Land

Never Land is the shaded area that surrounds our goal and the penalty area, and extends all the way to midfield.

Everyone defends Never Land, including offense! We control Never Land.

Unless you have Elephant Space, don’t pass or ask for a pass in Never Land. Drive the ball out of Never Land.

Move the ball out of Never Land and up the sidelines (see direction of arrows).

If the ball reaches the purple shaded area near our net, you are to EJECT the ball from the field of play on your first touch.

Keeper Tips

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Empty Your Head

Goals and mistakes happen. The best keepers have short memories. You have less than sixty seconds to recover. Breathe, smile, and get ready for the next attack.

Keeper Ready Position

Come three steps out of the net. Use the goal posts at the opposite end of the field to align yourself. Bend your knees. Get up on your toes. Put your arms, hands, and fingers down. Turn your palms toward the attacker with the ball.

Watch this YouTube video.

Keeper Radar On

As an attacker with the ball approaches, get into the Keeper Ready Position. Your chest is now a tracking radar. Angle your body and quickly shuffle from left to right (without crossing your feet) so that your chest is always centered on the potential path of the ball.

Watch this YouTube video.

Attack The Floaters

Don't wait. If the ball is floating toward you, jump through oncoming attackers and toward the ball with one knee in the air. Yell "keeper" loudly! Use your hands to scoop the ball into your waist.

Watch this YouTube video.

Knock Down Rockets

If you try to catch a rocket shot, it will go right through your hands. Knock down or punch away rockets instead.

Be A Monster

You are the monster of your box. You're hungry. The ball is your lunch. Attackers are your desert. Don't hesitate. Yell like a monster. Pick up the ball before an attacker can get to it.

Avoid The Middle

Avoid the middle dude. There's hardly ever a good reason to punt, throw, kick, or roll the ball into the middle of your team's side of the field.

Roll The Ball

Unless you can kick the ball like a guided missile, on goal kicks, roll the ball to one of your defenders instead. Don't turn over the ball by punting it to the other team.

Crush Corner Kicks

On corner kicks, stand at the goal post that is furthest away from the corner kick (the back post); this way you can charge forward to Attack The Floaters (ATF). Have one of your defenders cover the post nearest to the corner kick.

Organize Your Defenders

Don't let your defenders daydream. Confidently guide your defenders into positions where they can help you to Defend Never Land (DNL), Defeat The Cross (DTC), and Crush Corner Kicks (CCK).

Slow Motion Option

Once you have control of the ball, sometimes the best decision is to move slowly enough to let your team recover and get ready to attack. At other times, the best decision is to move quickly enough to take advantage of an unorganized opponent. In all cases Organize Your Defenders (OYD) first.

Kick The Pass

Don't forget, when your teammate passes the ball back to you, you can't pick it up. You have to kick the ball first.

Getting The Most Out Of Youth Soccer

We are a soccer family. I coach and all of our children play or played soccer. Our daughter captained her varsity team. Our twin boys play varsity, and they are also seasoned referees. Our youngest son plays for a local club team. And together, we have spent thousands of hours on and around soccer fields across the country.

When it comes to vacation, forget the ocean, we have so much fun with soccer that we only rent properties that are close to soccer fields. Weird huh? It wasn’t always like this. My wife and I didn’t even play organized sports. Twenty years ago, being a ‘soccer cult’, as my daughter calls us, was decidedly not part of the family vision. However, the benefits and the positive experiences kept piling up, including:

• making great friends with like-minded families

• having the kids away from the screen and running on the field

• having undistracted teaching opportunities in the car

• having the opportunity to demonstrate organization and leadership through coaching

• experiencing success through teamwork

• learning how to overcome failures and weaknesses

• having the opportunity to relate sports to the challenges of life

• having fun traveling, coaching, playing, and competing

• having a great first job as a referee

• learning about dedication and keeping commitments

We aren't the only ones that wear out tires driving to soccer events. In fact, the families we know that have had twenty plus years of healthy fun together while seemingly raising great kids, are also...dedicated soccer nuts.

If creating a family soccer cult, or perhaps something a bit short of this, sounds more fun than strange, here are some do’s and don’ts that we learned along the way:

Do make it JOB ONE to get your son or daughter to come back next season. This has to be the hardest job in youth sports, as most parents seem to be struggling with it.

Do make it all about fun. Kids only want to play if they are having fun. It’s not easy to find the fun side of inconsistent coaching, bad weather, overwhelming competition, and/or other uncontrollable things and events. However, it’s imperative that you always find a way to inject a bit of fun into each experience. It could be in the car, after practice, after a game, and/or with a new friend from the team. Always find a way to add a spoonful of fun.

Don’t share your [youth soccer related] disappointments, anxieties, criticisms, or negative thoughts in front of the kids. If you are not having fun, your child won’t either.

Don’t compare and measure. I can almost guarantee it: if you get your child to come back season after season, and year after year, your athlete will catch and/or surpass every eight-year old superstar you see on the field today.

Do praise and reward hard work. It’s fun to be recognized for working hard.

Don’t worry about A, B, and C team placements. By sixteen, the kids that participated annually are all friends, and most of them are on the same team by this age anyway.

Don’t undervalue attitude, smiles, and politeness. I have seen plenty of kids get a leg up simply based upon personality. When everyone is having fun, all this is easier.

Don’t think everyone deserves a trophy. Winning is way more fun than losing, and the kids know it. However, waffles after a loss and some praise for working hard is also fun.

Don’t coach unless you're the coach. Coaching contradictions, out-loud criticism, and endless coaching is no fun for anyone. Exchange polite emails with the coach about coaching.

Do teach work ethic and character. The funnest kids to coach are the kids that have already learned the value of hard work, teamwork, dedication, and politeness. These kids seem to succeed just by showing up.

Do consider becoming a coach. If you don’t coach your kid, someone else will. When I coach my kids, I double the fun!

Do think long-term. Every kid has a different trajectory. There are countless stories about pro athletes that did not succeed until later in life. Prepare for a long and fun journey together.

Do what most Olympic athletes do and participate in multiple sports, and/or make sure your athlete is training the opposing muscle groups that are not frequently used in soccer.

Don't try to build a lottery ticket. You can't turn your child into a pro, a D1 athlete, or a varsity superstar with extra, extra, stuff. Unless it's all done in the name of fun, the only thing you will accomplish by age fourteen...is burnout.

Don’t let anyone tell you that there’s too much emphasis on fun in this post. Stick to being the chauffeur and the master of fun, and you will succeed at creating your own tribe of dedicated soccer nuts :)

The Hardest Problem in Recreation

If we want more people to be compelled to vigorously exercise, mixed-group scheduling combined with play space provisioning is the hardest problem (in recreation) to solve.

• • •

It’s 4:00 PM on a sunny Saturday afternoon and Joe, age 8, is sitting on the couch watching television. There are five hundred other kids within ten miles doing nearly the same thing. There are countless athletic fields, play courts, and parks nearby...and all of them are empty.

Everyone is bored, but nobody is playing.  

Most kids - and many adults - won’t turn down an opportunity to vigorously participate in a fun group activity. So why are so many of them sitting on the couch?

Imagine five hundred willing participants within ten miles (more or less depending on population density), they are girls and boys ages eight to eighteen, athletes and non-athletes, and availability (to play) depends on transportation and other commitments.

Today, to spontaneously move five hundred kids off of the couch, it would take an army of on-demand coordinators to reserve play spaces, schedule supervision, and distribute the participants into balanced play groups that meet everyone's needs.  

The coordinators would have to account for availability (kids and supervisors by time slot), age-range, gender, skill-level, friend requests (to play together), transportation logistics, proximity, and play space inventory.

All of this coordinating would require at least five-thousand messages, and just as many playgroup and destination re-configurations.  

Moreover, securing safe, convenient, and appropriate places to play makes the problem even harder to solve. Participants will need to cross borders into other towns and cities to participate, and this is typically frowned upon by host communities that maintain public spaces for local taxpayers (only).

Now imagine doing this planning, reserving, and coordinating within every ten mile radius, every day, and all day long; this is what it will take to get people everywhere...spontaneously off of the couch. 

Leagues, clubs, and youth sports organizations solve a tiny fraction of this problem, but they can’t deliver a solution on demand. It’s too hard.  

If we want to get people to get off the couch by enabling spontaneous group play, we have to solve this problem first.

Eighty percent of the solution involves designing a super-simple (to end users) on-demand, playgroup scheduling and communication system (see www.x.ai for ideas), and the remaining twenty percent of the solution involves continuously providing enough play space inventory.

The Secret of Stuff

As children, my dad taught us how to sort pennies...dirty pennies.  We used a big sorting board that was covered with shallow boxes labeled by year.  We turned over thousands of pennies looking for 1955 double strucks.  We never found one.  We rolled pennies until our fingers turned green.  In addition to priming our immune systems, this was great training for someone destined to become the king of stuff.  

We started by organizing coins, then graduated to basements, barns, and garages; then onto the family business which was auto recycling.  

By fourteen, we had learned how to convert any mountain of stuff into a bucket of cash.  To become the kings of stuff, we used modern equipment, proprietary software, massive warehouses, fleets of trucks, and creative advertising.  The basic formula was simple: move everything to the center, sort it into smaller piles, toss the junk, containerize, label, and rack the remainder, age the rare stuff like wine, and price the common stuff to turn over quickly.

The business of stuff included scrap, auto parts, electronics, and consumer goods; it led to an acquisition by Ford Motor Company, spin-off businesses, wealth, security, and the freedom to acquire a stream of - you guessed it - endless stuff.  

I have handled more stuff than most people on earth.  I even started a business called ‘Stuff Pro’ to help people that were drowning in their stuff.  As the king of stuff, I’m writing this post to share the secret of stuff.  Ready?  Nothing distracts one from achieving true happiness more than the pursuit of stuff.  Ask anyone that can’t leave a bad job, that can’t afford the car they are driving, the house they are living in, or the credit cards they are paying off, or anyone else that’s drowning in clutter or deprived of time: “Does the pursuit of stuff lead to happiness...or not?”

Marketers don’t want you to know this, and the consumption economy would crumble if everyone did, but there’s a HUGE, hidden burden that comes with every single bit of stuff.  Beyond the purchase price, there’s the time-cost of stuff, including the time to acquire it, move it, store it, clean it, repair it, upgrade it, move it again, dust it, box it, bag it, rack it, sell it, ship it, move it again, account for it, dispose of it or recycle it.  Moreover, consumers rarely think about the cost of insuring, heating, cooling, renting, powering, and paying taxes for the space where they store their extra stuff.  And, even fewer worry about the cradle-to-grave, environmental impact of simply having stuff.

Back to true happiness.  At the end of life, nobody ever wants more stuff, they want more time!  Time is your most precious commodity.  People that undervalue their time spend it on futzing with stuff.  Smart people account for the future value of their time.  If you want to earn $100 an hour in the future, then why do you spend so much time cleaning and moving your stuff?  it’s a low-wage job.

Furthermore, your stuff is worth way less than you think.  Have you checked eBay or Craigslist lately?  There’s so much stuff on the web now.  Rare things have become common, and regular things are free.  Your time is worth more than your stuff.   Your heated, taxable space is worth more than your stuff.  Are you holding onto worthless stuff?   

If you want the freedom to create anything, or the ability to travel, or to be the master of your time, then consider the hidden cost of everything you acquire.  Think about this: if you could afford to rent everything, you’d have the time to do anything.  Truth.  Stuff is a burden; the burden begins the moment you start looking for it, and it doesn’t end until it’s been properly recycled; and when you give it to others...the burden travels.

Whether pursuing or purging stuff, ask yourself: will this enrich my life?  If not, use the time instead to create something, read a book, write a book, play an instrument, exercise, or travel.  Remember, people are remembered for what they create, not for what they consume.

Related:

The Story of Stuff https://youtu.be/9GorqroigqM

21 Surprising Statistics That Reveal How Much Stuff We Actually Own    https://www.becomingminimalist.com/clutter-stats/

Simple Money Borrowing and Lending Rules to Live By

In 1964 a local businessman lent my father enough money to launch his business; you could say his money, combined with my father’s ambition, underwrote the next fifty years of our family’s above-average financial well-being. My father was able to grow a substantial business, and the lender, a man that expected very little in return, slightly profited; however, he left a lasting impact that spanned three generations.

More often than not, businesses are built upon loans. Without loans, the world of commerce would come to a grinding halt. If you plan to borrow or lend money, here are a few simple rules to live by:      

Borrowing: Nobody forgets a bad debtor! A debtor is someone that owes a sum of money. The only way to become a debtor is to take on a commitment to pay a person, friend, bank, company, or other lender in the future. If you owe money to anyone, for any reason, you are a debtor.  Who you owe, the amount you owe, why you are indebted, and your current circumstances DO NOT MATTER. Unless you are released from your debts, you are a debtor. If you don’t live up to your payment commitments, you are a bad debtor. You can be friendly, smart, generous, and soulful, but if you are a bad debtor, it’s a negative tag that’s impossible to escape. The database is permanent, and although people forgive, they never forget unpaid debts. If you want to avoid being a bad debtor, don’t go into debt. And if you choose to go into debt, make damn sure that you thoroughly understand, and can live by...the terms of your debts.  

If you are struggling with your debts, always, always communicate with your lenders; reiterate your commitments; negotiate extended terms; and never act as though your misfortunes are someone else’s problem or responsibility. Pay your debts and be remembered as a good debtor. I want to reiterate that being a bad debtor does not equate to being a bad person. Understandably, some people have to ask for their debts to be forgiven. The point is, the “bad debtor” tag is nearly impossible to shake, and better to be avoided altogether.

Lending: Smart lenders anticipate bad debtors. Unfortunately, there are too many good people that are bad debtors. If you are thinking about loaning someone money, or getting paid in the future for anything, including your labor, make sure you can afford to convert your ‘loan’ into a donation. People get sick. People fall on hard times. Stuff happens. As a creditor, be prepared to suspend or extend payments and forgive debts.  

When lending, ask for repayment terms, including interest, that are equivalent to the terms you would be willing to accept as a borrower. When the potential for nonpayment is obvious, charge higher rates. Be transparent about everything and never take advantage of people. Put everything in writing. Here’s a tip: use your phone to record a video whereby the debtor reiterates his or her commitments; nothing outlasts a reminder that includes the recorded words of a borrower.

It’s really, really challenging to be both a friend and a creditor. If a friend needs money, once again...make a donation. If a friend owes you money, is unwilling to live by your agreement, and is threatening to end your friendship, then they are friends you don’t need. Collect what’s owed and find new friends.   

Lending and borrowing can change lives and help dreams come true. No matter the amount or the persons involved, take it seriously and live up to your commitments.  

I write these notes to share with my children...

The Haley Pitch Every Founder Should Know

Prior to spending a ton of time on a business plan or an investor deck, create a simple Haley Pitch.  It's the most efficient way to obtain valuable feedback from advisors, mentors, and the critics you respect.

You don't need to nail it.  

However, you should be able to demonstrate that you have invested at least one hundred hours discussing prototypes, mockups, storyboards, or wireframes with potential users and/or customers.

Meet Haley

While creating pitches for my last four ventures, we used a fictional character called Haley as our ideal user. 

Depending on the venture, Haley has been a mom, an event planner, the CEO of a non-profit, and a bride. 

Once you've got it down, you'll be able to deliver the Haley Pitch in three minutes.  

Here’s how:  

Slide One (above):  Backstory & Problem

Start with a story.  Quickly describe Haley, her situation (context), and her acute problem.

When using pictures, you don't need demographic details.  

“Haley is a bride.  She’s marrying Jeff.  Haley needs to discuss and obtain feedback on cakes, venues, bands, dresses, food, and a myriad of other details from her bridesmaids, her mother, her in-laws, from Jeff, and even from Jeff’s friends!  Coordinating all this using email will create a clustercluck.  Clusterclucks are hard to manage.”

Clustercluck defined: “Any set of circumstances in which massive disorganization has the potential to cause serious damage, or a disastrous situation that results from the cumulative errors of several people or groups.”

Please also read “It’s Not What You Said, It’s How You Made Them Feel” by Tyler Crowley.

Slide Two (above):  Product Scaffolding

Similar to construction scaffolding, entrepreneurs can use 'scaffolding' to construct the concept of their venture.

In one sentence (see template below), combine the job-to-be-done (by your product or service), your brand name, and your unique value proposition.

This is also where you show a screenshot(s), storyboards, an early demo, and/or paint (over the phone) a clear, concise picture of your product or service.

Template: “When Haley wants to X, she'll use Y to get Z.”

• X - job-to-be-done / pain to be eliminated

• Y - your brand name

• Z - unique value proposition

“When Haley wants to privately coordinate her wedding plans with everyone who matters, she'll use StackChat to simply manage a related stack of issues and input [i.e.: prevent a clustercluck}."

Below are some additional examples that combine a job-to-be-done with a brand and a value proposition.

• When Haley wants to be transported across town, Haley uses Uber to obtain inexpensive on-demand transportation.

• When Haley wants to remember a song, Haley uses Shazam to rapidly acquire essential song information.

• When Haley wants to consume a lot of information, Haley uses Instapaper to transform distracting web pages into a uniform stream of curated information.

• When Haley wants news, Haley uses the Boston Globe website to obtain current, reliable, genuine information.

Watch:  a short video related Jobs-To-Be-Done featuring Clayton Christensen.

Read:  The Few Sentences You Need to Dominate Your Market

Read:  David Cancel talking about his “No Ands” rule.  

Read:  my post on Product Scaffolding

Slide Three (above):  More Scaffolding.

For those who can't relate to your first job-to-done example (e.g.: coordinating wedding plans), quickly outline additional examples.  

"Travel planning, housing decisions, big ticket purchase, repairs, group dining, health, and healthcare decisions...all have potential to become clusterclucks.  When Haley wants to privately coordinate these things with everyone that matters, she'll use StackChat to simply manage a related stack of issues and input."

Slide Four (above):  Mobile App:  Job-To-Be-Done

If your mobile app only had ONE button (think Shazam), what would it do for users?  If your answer contains the word ‘and’, be prepared to defend the clarity of your product vision.  Your mobile app should be the one-click, one-button manifestation of your product scaffolding, and not a feature cacciatore.

"When Haley launches StackChat, she will be able to quickly respond to her clustecluck messages by subcategory."

Learn more about Jobs-To-Be-Done on Medium

Slide Five (above):  Instant Onboarding Ideas

Do you have any ideas that will enable a user to get up and running quickly?

It’s really hard to move users from being curiously interested to becoming committed users. Enable users to experience maximum value for minimal effort.  Avoid complex signups, forms, data capture wizards, upload requirements, unnecessary this-before-that roadblocks, and pre-use instruction manuals/videos.  Give visitors dead-simple ways to try your product...instantly.

"By enabling anyone to enter a Pinterest or YouTube URL, anyone can instantly start a private or public StackChat."  

Slide Six (above):  From None to Huge

You might be creating a product that will eventually have broad appeal and become a billion dollar business.  However, I would like to hear about the first customer segment you intend to target, and how that segment will lead to related exposure opportunities.

Using round numbers...

“Annually, there are 3.5M brides and grooms like Haley and Jeff, and another 16M bridesmaids and groomsmen; during the wedding process, all these people combined will have 100M conversations with 20M different businesses.”

For any given product or service, there are often multiple segments you could initially target.  Pick an entry point (segment) that is easy to define, easy to reach, and most importantly, one that exposes (through usage) your product to a broader audience.

Slide Seven (above):  User Acquisition

Tell me about some of the ideas you have for reaching and acquiring users.  For example:

• ads and articles in bridal magazines

• search advertising

• a partnership with a company that already reaches brides (e.g.: The Knot)

• blogging and social media

• influencer marketing

• direct selling

• by creating value for a related party (e.g.: event planners as a conduit)

Slide Eight (above):  Business Model

Outside of selling banner ads, do you have any unique ideas for generating revenue?  In the simple example above, regular humans (like Haley) will use StackChat for free, while business users interested in 'stack commerce', routing and queueing controls, and more, will pay $100 per-seat (annual).

Now I get it! 

For your product or service, if you can outline the job-to-be-done, your unique value proposition, a brand concept, some go-to-market and onboarding ideas, combined with a product demo, storyboards, or wireframes, we can have a productive conversation.  I'm never interested in long resumes, slides filled with text, tables, charts, and (initially) projections.  After we get through your product vision, we can talk about plans, strategies, numbers and metrics. 

StackChat Status

I worked on StackChat with Daniel Clarke.  I invested a small amount of capital and created the storyboards; Dan interviewed potential customers; and we both spent a lot of time in coffee shops discussing strategy.  At this point, StackChat is not a fully-baked idea.  For the job-to-be-done, StackChat's value proposition overlaps with Slack's, and 'clustercluck prevention' is not a slogan we can go to market with.  However,  there's a bunch of things here, including Haley, worth recycling.

Product Scaffolding

Similar to construction scaffolding, entrepreneurs can use 'scaffolding' to construct the concept of their venture.

I frequently get into discussions and debates with friends and founders about the viability of new products and services.  Product scaffolding makes it easy for me to rapidly evaluate the opportunity size, branding, and believability (is it possible).

In my experience, if you can’t describe your product or service using simple, harmonious product scaffolding, your venture will struggle.

Product scaffolding is ONE sentence:

• When Haley wants to be transported across town, Haley will use Uber to instantly obtain inexpensive, on-demand transportation.

• When Haley wants to remember a song, Haley will use Shazam to rapidly acquire essential song information.

• When soccer enthusiasts want to play, they will use Rocket Soccer to instantly schedule a convenient, competitive match.

• When artists want to record a music video with their fans, they will use FanStudio to effortlessly schedule a live, professionally orchestrated recording.

Use This Template:  When A wants to B, A will use C to get D.

• A)  a character, actor, persona, or segment  

• B)  the job-to-done by your product or service

• C)  your brand name (actual or under consideration)

• D)  the value proposition you intend to deliver

Erecting Your Scaffolding

1. Choose a segment to target.

2. Nail the job-to-be-done.

3. Settle on a value proposition.

4. Come up with a brand that fits.

1)  Choose a Segment.  You should know, and be willing to love, your customers.  Anything less creates an uphill battle.  When choosing customers to serve, I rely on this simple metaphor:  Don’t back a hip hop artist when all you listen to is rock and roll.  

2)  Nail the Job-To-Done.  The ‘want’ or desire to get a job done causes people to contemplate and/or seek a product, service, or solution.  (See “want” in the sentences above.)  Consumers then HIRE (with their time or money) a product or service to do the job.

The best ways to determine true ‘want’ are to ask and observe.  Set aside biases, preconceived notions, your habits, and your rituals.  Ask: What do you want to do?  Observe:  What are they trying to do?  Dig deep.  Repeatedly ask and observe.  

When someone is hanging a picture on a wall, are they decorating a room, hiding a hole, sharing memories, or showcasing art?  What are they hiring the picture to do?  Ask and observe. Ask and observe. Ask and observe.

Nailing the job-to-be-done is the only way to deliver the right value proposition.  If your observations reveal that people ‘want’ more art in their busy lives, do you ‘want’ to sell empty picture frames?  Learn more...

Avoid Run-On Jobs-To-Be-Done.   For new ventures, I am a huge believer in the “No Ands Rule”.  Avoid the word “and” in your product scaffolding.  Get a foot in the door, a wedge in the market, or a prominent slice of mindshare by picking a SINGLE job-to-be-done.  

Here’s an example of bad, run-on scaffolding (using “ands”): “When artists want to record a music video with their fans, and acquire new fans, and build a simple website, they will use FanStudio to….[to get lost and confused]”

3)  Settle on a Value Proposition.  A value proposition is the reason humans ‘hire’ your offering.  Peter Sandeen has the best definition of ‘value proposition’ on the web:  “A strong value proposition is a believable collection of the most persuasive reasons your target customers should do what you’re hoping they will do.” 

I am going to add: if you can’t deliver it on day one, don’t say it.  For example: you can’t deliver a “global network of passionate fans” to user number ONE.  However, you could pitch (to early adopters), your product’s capacity to simply enable: paid, private showcases, or fee-free, online tipjars, or some other “believable collection of persuasive reasons”.

To sum up: the WANT or desire to get a job done causes people to contemplate and/or seek something; while your value proposition is the reason WHY humans HIRE your offering.

4)  Come Up With a Brand That Fits.  I like adaptable brand names that you can pour meaning into (e.g.: Google, Mint, Twitter, Square), or harmonious brand names that conjure the embodiment of WANT + WHY (the ‘want’ or desire to get a job done + ‘why’ humans will hire your offering), (e.g.: Facebook, Salesforce, Linkedin, Travelocity).  

Adaptable brands make it easy to pivot, while harmonious brands make it easier to communicate value.  If you really think that you have uncovered true ‘want’, and if you know with unflinching certainty that you can deliver a unique value proposition, consider a harmonious brand name.

A final word on brand names:  It’s often hard to secure the .com for harmonious brand names.  However, if you can get the .com (recommended), you probably don’t have to worry about trademark infringement.  Alternatively, secure the best, pure (no hyphens), adaptable .com name that you can imagine.

Also read:  The Haley Pitch Every Founder Should Know

Big Data Can't Find Austin's Songs

Some time ago I worked with an artist named Austin. Austin was immensely talented and equally tortured. He's been writing songs since he was twelve and drinking whiskey since he was fifteen. Austin doesn't own a computer, doesn't use social media, and he lost his cellphone number because he couldn't pay his bill. Five managers have walked away, and he's been tossed out of venues up and down the east coast. Nevertheless, he's got a good heart, striking charisma, a commanding voice, and he effortlessly writes the kind of timeless songs that are loved by everyone that hears them. Beyond being a bit of a drunk, Austin's biggest mistake is endlessly waiting for the rockstar bus; he's invested twenty thousand hours into being a musician...with no plan B.

On the other side of town, Cara graduated from a notable university with a degree in music. She has been playing piano and guitar since she was ten.  You can find Cara on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and she operates her own Wordpress site.  Cara is attractive, fit, and energetic.  She records music with a notable producer, is managed by a pro, and plays to packed rooms in her hometown.  Not only does Cara have over ten thousand fans, friends, and followers, her family supports her in every way imaginable.  I like to watch Cara perform, but I can't whistle a note or recite a chorus from a single one of her songs.

You can find entertaining Caras all over the world. They are everywhere.  You can't find Austin anywhere. He's barely on the Internet.  His unmastered recordings are decaying on a hard drive in a defunct studio, and the venues that loved him have given up trying to find him.

If you want to be in the label business of discovering, co-writing, developing, producing, investing in, and promoting dozens of Caras in the hope of creating a (360 degree) breakout, big data can help you. However, if you are looking for Austin's unpromoted songs, big data falls on its face. 

Given the risk, the failure rate, and the lottery machine nature of the music industry, I would rather promote one of Austin’s songs versus discovering a dozen Caras.  

Sure, the big labels and a few independents have a formula for making Caras into celebrities, but it’s expensive, inefficient, and the product is often bland and repetitive.

To date, nobody has created a machine that finds Austin's songs.  Given where the world (consumption, demand, streaming, etc.) is heading, this is what I want to invest in.

Meanwhile, you can find me at Cara’s next gig.

Life Lessons From a Landscaper

On January 1st, 2015, after a courageous battle with cancer, Bruce R. Warila passed away.

My father was a successful businessman who built an auto recycling empire. Despite the fact that he spent his days amongst a sea of wrecked cars, bent metal, and burly men, my dad went home each day to his beloved trees, his blossoming flowers, and landscape designs. He was a junkyard dog with a soft spot for pansies, pine mulch, and asparagus.

It was there among the thousands of trees he planted, pruned, and watered that he shared the wisdom he had acquired through his keen observation of nature. He wasn’t exactly a philosopher, but if you read between the vines, his life lessons often delivered as landscaping advice were real and important. Here are just a few:

• Think long term. It takes fifty years to grow a majestic tree. Some people don’t see the point in investing in trees. You will be amazed how fast time goes by. Someday, the trees you planted will be more valuable than your house.

• Have a plan. Plants and trees takes years to grow. You have to account for size and proximity now and many years into the future.

• Plan carefully. It takes fifty years to grow a majestic tree. If you cut it down, you ain’t getting it back.

• Mark change. When you walk around your yard, watch how things continue to change from season-to-season, and year-to-year. Nature has the capacity to split rocks, carve canyons, and blanket the sun. You can see it happening if you open just your eyes and take inventory of your surroundings.

• Respect the things you can’t control. Nature will have more impact on your land than you could ever have.

• Start small. Don’t go out and buy the biggest tree you can afford. Get a younger tree that hasn’t been pumped up with fertilizer and care for it yourself; you will end up with a better plant.

• Pull weeds. Weeds will choke anything. If you don’t attend to weeds quickly and frequently they will overrun your garden.  

• Make sacrifices. Sometimes you have to cut down an older, misshapen tree to let a younger tree flourish. 

• Prune the deadwood. By cutting away the branches that no longer affect the health of the plant, you are giving what’s left a better chance to survive.

• Old plants need attention too. Everyone knows that you should water recent plantings. However, those trees that have been providing shade for the last ten years…they need hydration too.  Nothing keeps a tree happy like ongoing attention.

• Initial conditions matter. When planting trees and shrubs, dig extra large holes. When trees are rooting, don’t make them do extra work; they need all of their energy to adjust to new surroundings. 

• Diversify. Don’t plant too much of the same thing. Insects, blight, and extreme weather can kill off entire species. Make sure you plant a diversified portfolio of plants and trees.

• Inclusive trumps exclusive. The best landscapes are the ones that you can share with the community.  

• Don’t overdo it. If a little fertilizer is good, a lot must be great. Wrong. Too much food and drink will kill anything.   

• Buy local. Look for plants and trees that were grown locally by people you trust. It’s going to be easier to establish plants that are used to the local environment.

• It’s OK to make mistakes, that’s what chainsaws and shovels are for. Try new things and plant stuff every year. You can always rip it out or move it later. 

• It’s not work, it’s exercise. My yard is the best gym in town.

• Real men plant flowers. Planting is a great escape, and it gives you a wonderful sense of accomplishment.

This list could go on and on. I am sure that I learned more about life from our tree talks, than anything else.   I am going to miss our yard safaris, but I am looking forward to seeing what he has planted in heaven.   

~Bruce 

Free Restaurant Pro-Forma

This post on my blog is an odd duck for me. However, I realize this post is useful to others. In 2016, I did in fact consider investing in a huge restaurant concept with some friends. If you found this post, I would love to know if the spreadsheet was useful. Please send me a note and/or feedback to brucewarila on Twitter or Gmail.

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Lots of entrepreneurs consider the restaurant business.  It’s easy to sit in a restaurant and imagine doing it better.  I’m no different.  So, when presented with the opportunity to invest in a new restaurant business, I dove in like a Shark Tank advisor.  

In reality, the restaurant business is hard.  It’s really hard.  Those that have mastered the trade are often immensely successful; everyone else seems to struggle.

Like any new business, the best place to begin is to develop a detailed understanding of how wealth is created and lost.  There are four essential steps to this process:

1. Find truly successful industry advisors.

2. Read all of the how-to (succeed) advice on the Internet.

3. Create an operating budget from scratch.

4. Validate assumptions with your advisors.

To save everyone that stumbles upon this post some of the time it takes to create an operating budget from scratch, here’s the one I created.

Some things you need to know:

• There are many hidden columns in the workbook.

• Many variables are within the hidden columns.

• We were planning a HUGE multi-purpose facility in the middle of a densely populated city.

• Some of the numbers were intentionally altered to differ from the actual plan.

• You should validate F&B costs, labor costs, and other costs, as a percentage of gross sales, with your advisors.

• Sales and marketing costs reflect the effort required to drive a significant event business.

• The ‘comps’ within the workbook were surfaced from information we found on the Internet.

• The ‘impact’ tab was our attempt to measure the social impact of this business.  

For each division (restaurant, cafe, events) we estimated an average week two years in the future; projections then ramped up to and over this estimate on a monthly basis (over a five-year period).

Anyone with some basic knowledge of Excel should be able to pick apart and customize this workbook to fit your needs.  

Thanks to Travis Talbot, Franklin Ferguson, and Daniel Clarke for helping me with this.  I did not know anything about the F&B business when I started.  These guys had to answer over a thousand questions to get me up to speed.

Social and Technical Phenomena That Are Making Your Music The Only Thing That Matters To Your Success

Published in 2010 

I will argue here (just to be controversial) that prior to becoming popular (as in financially viable), you could choose to have no website, no Facebook fan page, no widgets, no videos, no album, no twitter, no centralized location on the Internet, and never do much of anything on the Internet that could be called self-promotion, and that your fans can and could effortlessly do everything for you now…including the recording and the distribution of your music. 

Moreover, I will also stipulate that all the stuff I just listed above is practically a waste of your time now, as it’s all being steamrolled anyways. See the list below:

Social Amplification. With the unprecedented, widespread use of social utilities like Facebook and Twitter, hundreds of millions humans now have super simple mechanisms that enable all of us to rapidly connect, communicate, and share thoughts and stuff between targeted and/or widespread groups of people.  Collectively, people are currently doing this billions of times a day.
 
Swarming Capabilities. With wireless devices, GPS, and the location-aware and geo-tagging capabilities that are (or will be) part of Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, Flickr, YouTube, and part of countless other programs, humans can and are swarming upon physical sites, happenings and events.  If the swarm/crowd/herd wants to be someplace together, they can and will be. 

Fan-Driven Crowd-Control. Prior to obtaining 50,000,000 spins / impressions (niche-fame), fans can and will exert unprecedented and real-time control over the size and the composition of your crowds.  The shared knowledge of who is going to your shows, and who is already there, is equal to, or more important than…you are.

Effort Shifting. The camera, video and recording capabilities that are baked into the devices that ordinary people carry in their pockets now, are capable of capturing moments and events, and at a quality level that’s entertaining enough, to engage today’s entire online population.  Fans can and will record everything and anything that’s remarkable.  You no longer need to do this for them.

Brand Un-Control. Your brand name, your images and your music will be linked and tagged to thousands or even to tens of thousands of images, videos, and status updates that may or may not have anything to do with you or the brand you once tried to control.  You and your brand will often be sideshows attached to someone’s permanent online memory. 

Thumbs Up. And all those images, videos, recordings, and status updates that are linked and tagged to your name - they’re all being quality-rated…in real-time.  Think about the Facebook thumbs up button; it’s not only a rating tool, it’s a social amplifier.

Decentralization. Both Microsoft Bing and Google Search feature mixed search results that include traditional text-based search results, audio, video, images and real-time stream postings.  Look for social (quality) ratings, location awareness, scheduling and other tidbits to also become part of every search-results presentation.  

Your brand (and brand rating) will be everywhere and anywhere fans put it and rate it.  Search results are becoming (to artists and fans) what MySpace use to be (a glorified directory).  However this time, you won’t be able to completely control the presentation.  Every bit of information about you will be found and smartly presented as the result of a search query.

Remixing. The ability to slice, dice and remix whatever you create is also unprecedented.  There are even smart phone applications that will enable fans to remix your show before you have even left the stage.  Don’t expect anything to remain as you intended it.

Given these eight relatively recent social and technical phenomena, the only three things you have to get right now are: 1) incrementally improve your songs or a song, until it is, or they are, all over the Internet (via the efforts of fans); 2) incrementally improve your live show to the point where fans are asking you to turn up the volume; and 3) learn how to throw an ongoing party that keeps people coming back week after week, or month after month (to be covered in my next post).  If you give fans great songs, a great show, and a great party…they can and will do everything else now.  Everything.

Have You Ridden a Windhorse?

Thanks to my first true friend Grasmaand, for the last twenty years, as I have moved from industry to industry, I have carried the image of a Tibetan windhorse with me from one venture to another.

Hard work, relationships and creative output have never gotten me where I wanted to go, it’s always been a windhorse that carried me someplace else.   

Strangely enough, the destination was never a place where I intended a go, it’s just a place I ended up.  

A windhorse is not a strategy. It’s not a relationship. It’s not a routine. It’s not a drug. It’s any of the above. It’s what you ride that takes you to a place where you didn’t know you wanted to be.

It’s vague I know. You won’t get it until you’ve ridden one, and unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at things, you simply can’t mount a windhorse and go someplace you didn’t know you wanted to be. Sorry, it doesn’t seem to work that way.

A windhorse can only be ridden once. Everyone rides at least one. The only way you will ever find yours is through reflection.

Then it’s all useless and senseless you say. Not really. You can’t ride very far unless you’re prepared, and that’s the point.

I’m certain you will recall the image of the windhorse every time you dismount one. Moreover, everyone you pass this intangible conundrum onto will be tagged with the same indefinite combination of uncertainty and imminent contentment. Oh well.

If you think I am kidding, try forgetting the windhorse. You can’t and you won’t.

Windhorses on Wikipedia

This post started as an April Fool's post, as I don't do the guru thing on MTT, plus it's a bit of a crack on guru speak. However the post is also real and valid brain food. View original post.

Create an Elaborate Plan

Published in 2008

Creating an elaborate plan may not be for everyone, but someone is going to succeed at doing this.  The image below is one of the most important parts of this post.

There has been a lot of discussion on this blog and on the Internet about the end of the album as an organizing principle.  Spending mind time on the decision to make albums or to sequentially release singles is missing the point.

Revenue from the sale of music is slowing considerably for everyone.  Recurring revenue, which is the ongoing stream of revenue you make outside of touring, is going to come from consumers that tune into and fall in love with your brand on the Internet.

To persuade fans to tune in, to fall in love with, and to spend money on your brand, you need an elaborate plan that goes way beyond the album or singles decision.  You will have go far beyond creating a MySpace page that features five of your songs and ten pictures of your band.  You will have to rethink what it means to be entertaining on the Internet.  

The name of your brand, the URL you use, the first word you type, the sequence in which you release your songs, your lyrics, the images you feature, the videos you release, the messages you type, and everything you put into your online presence should be part of an elaborate plan to seduce fans.
 
The concept of seduction does not have to be sexual.  I use the concept of seduction to convey complexity and long term planning.  Map out a two year or three year plan that elaborately pulls people into your world of images, poetry, lyrics, stories, music, mystery, hints, clues, energy, characters, plot, storyline, drama, intrigue and excitement.

A regular old website or MySpace page is not the ideal vehicle for building a brand upon.  Your name and your image may not be the ideal vehicle to build a brand upon.  Start by thinking like the creator of a television series.  What do you call it?  What is it about?  How many “seasons” will it take to tell the story?  Make the presentation simple and compelling, but make your plan to seduce - elaborate, intriguing and complex. 

The Flat Earth Conundrum

Published in 2010

Do you believe crowds of humans will ever (or do now) sway as much control over the rate and depth of media dissemination as the established media machine does now?

It’s easier than ever to make studio-quality songs and great looking videos.

You can easily distribute your music and creations worldwide.

Through promotion tools and strategies, you can continually increase the rate and depth in which your media spreads throughout the world.

However, just as there‘s always someone that’s stronger, faster, smarter or wealthier than any one of us, will there always be entities that can push media faster and deeper into the marketplace than ALL of us (humans) networked together?

My answer to the question above is:  The media world is flattening, but it will be years before networks of humans can consistently push media and messages faster and deeper than most media entities can now.  However, due to the shrinking fortunes of most media businesses, the gatekeepers that control mass-media exposure opportunities are looking for artists that are flat-earth savvy (capable of mitigating risk by excelling at self-promotion) and/or content that has flat-earth appeal (the potential to go viral).

It’s a conundrum.  You currently can’t match their speed and depth (of dissemination) on your own, but they can no longer afford to feature you unless you can obtain speed and depth on your own.

The Primary Job of a Manager is to Take Care of Your Lazy Artist!

Published in 2009

When a westerner (an American for example) walks by the office of a co-worker, and the co-worker is quietly sitting there doing nothing, the westerner’s first reaction is that the co-worker is lazy and probably slacking. On the other side of the world, when an easterner (someone from Japan for example) walks by a coworker, and that coworker is doing nothing, the easterner’s first reaction is that the coworker is most likely engaged in deep thought whilst grinding away at a solution to some problem.

I want to say two things in this post:  

First, You are probably never going to promote your artist to fame and fortune. I think it’s the manager’s job to help his or her artists earn enough money on a weekly basis until the day comes when the artist writes the song that puts the manager-artist partnership over the top. Yes there’s plan B, but that’s probably not why you quit your day job to manage artists.

Second, I am not a songwriter, but I practice my own form of art, and I’m pretty good at it. I find that churning out quality art takes a lot of iterations, physical iterations and mental iterations. Mental iterations are the toughest. When you have a lot of stress in your life and distractions around you, iterating can seem like riding a loop of barbed wire.   

So if you want to help the lazy artist you believe in, take care of all the business you can, and someday he or she may pen the song you have been waiting for. After all, the music business is more or less a lottery; so you have to ask yourself, how many hours would you trade for the winning ticket?

Point and Click Copyright Control

Published in 2009

For context, read the comments on the original post.

Q: What happens when you put a lawyer, an economist, a business executive, a government bureaucrat and an artist into a locked room?  A: The business executive assaults the economists, the lawyer sues the executive, the bureaucrat falls asleep, and the artist writes a song about it.  This is the copyright debate.

Over the last couple of years, and as a background task, I have tried to make sense of the copyright / copy restriction debate.  Is more or less copy restriction better or worse for rightsholders? 

The debate, which requires multiple, advanced degrees and a slug of caffeine to follow, is often dominated by intellectual giants that toss around economic concepts such as ‘rivalrous resources’ and ‘marginal cost of production’.  I have to admit, I still feel a little stupid when it comes to debating with the debaters.  I am the person (the dreamer/entrepreneur) they didn’t let into the room to begin with.

So after two years of listening to all sides (and I am still listening), I have decided that today (October, 2009), I am not for loosening copyright restrictions.

The Lottery Model and Bubble Marketing
The graphic above depicts how the music industry operates today.

• Money is spent to launch an artist or song.

• A revenue / market traction bubble is created (depicted in green).

• More often than not, after the bubble-budget runs out, measurable market traction resembles pre-bubble spending.

• Breakeven on investment is occasionally achieved.

• And on rare occasions, a song or artist achieves post-bubble popularity over time (this would be a lottery hit). 

Therefore, if one was concerned about the wellbeing of artists, and if he or she also happened to be a student of economics and intellectual property philosophy, I can see how this person would conclude (after looking at the current industry model) that less copyright restriction leads to more exposure, and thus profits, for artists.

The Free Culture ‘Model’
The graphic just above (source: www.questioncopyright.org) depicts the thinking behind the Free Culture model; it goes something like this: if restrictions are removed, content flows freely between humans, and then (song/artist) popularity (and thus profits) increase over time (see the maroon line).  Alternatively (to the free culture model), content gets ‘locked up’ after the marketing/launch blitz in copyright monopolies; thus preventing the content (books, songs, video, etc.) from ever achieving the market traction they deserve (depicted by the green line).

I think I get it.  Nobody can (today) ‘control’ content; it wants to be ‘free’.  Songs are not rivalrous resources and the marginal cost of production is zero. Nobody gets hurt except those that have a vested interest (for example: record labels and publishers) in copyright monopolies.  And even these ‘vested interests’ could benefit if they adopted new business model.  Do I have this right?

My objections to the Free Culture model are as follows:
Beyond the fact that there’s no shelf life on the Internet and digital goods don’t go out of print, once a country, state, organization or individual - legislatively, legally or individually (via Creative Commons), dials back (loosens restrictions on) copyrights, they cannot easily be reclaimed or dialed back.  I have a problem with this.  I could be missing something here, but I can’t lend support to a model/mindset that fails to contemplate a day when global copyright can be controlled (turned on and off) via the click of a mouse (Jeff Shattuck - Cheers).

Just because the business models of rightsholders have not kept pace with the realities of Internet culture, it does not mean we should be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  There is another way, and interestingly enough, I believe the industry is organically moving/evolving in this direction.

The Click Control Model
The Click Control business-copyright model is one in which rightsholders will (someday) simply and easily suspend and reclaim their copyrights.  It makes sense to be able to temporarily and selectively suspend one’s copyrights to encourage adoption (including commercial usage), and then (via the click of a mouse) reclaim their suspended rights someplace along the way to becoming a classic; provided that is where the song is headed (why bother otherwise?).

As a practical matter, in world where people still love to physically control their music (as in downloading it to their hard drives), this vision / model would be nearly impossible to absolutely enforce (non-absolute versions are surely possible).  However as we transition from an ownership model to a streaming model (and we are), point-and-click copyright control makes a lot more sense.  

The Click Control Model is in touch with where the industry is going.
The business models of rightsholders are finally catching up with Internet culture.  Not only are labels figuring out that there’s not enough ROI in the bubble/lottery model to keep it going, they are also embracing 360 deals which create an alignment of economic interests between artists and investors.  In these deals, music can be set free (preferably for period) to encourage viral promotion of a song or an artist; then it’s in every stakeholder’s interest, once some optimal level of viral exposure has been obtained, to be able to fully reclaim some or all rights.  There are other benefits, as this model more closely tracks the slow-build, organic growth curve that most products (there are exceptions) on the Internet have to follow.

As I said at the top of this post, I am for more (extended) copyright control, not less; provided that we can someday move to the click-control model I just covered.   However as I stated prior, I am not for any sort of broad government-driven controls on file sharing, as I view this as a reduction rather than an extension of (artist/rightsholders) rights.


Note: Please don’t confuse my authoritative writing style with my willingness to adopt a different position on this subject.  I readily admit that I may have even mixed up terms and concepts within this post.  Discussion and debate is what I am after here…

Learning From Stone

Last summer, on a rocky beach, I watched a scruffy performance artist rapidly and repeatedly balance dozens of random rocks on edge. He wasn’t using super glue, cement, sand, or dents in the ground. The Rock Whisperer lifted awkward chunks of granite, irregular seastones, and lopsided boulders; rolled them around in his calloused hands; and then zenfully placed them point or edge down on the seawall. The rocks did not spin, wobble, or fall. Instead, they remained suspended upright like inverted stalagmites (see picture).

If anyone wanted to try this puzzle, he or she only needed a rock and a section of seawall. So naturally, random bystanders took up the challenge. With the steady cadence of a drill instructor, the Rock Whisperer repeatedly encouraged would-be stone-standers by slowly calling out:

“The stone will teach you what you need to know.”

“The stone will teach you what you need to know.”

“The stone will teach you what you need to know.”

He said nothing else.

Other than art, the Rock Whisperer was unknowingly teaching us something else:

If someone shows you, you will obtain confidence that the problem or puzzle can be solved.

If someone shows you, and teaches you, you will solve the problem.

If nobody shows you, and nobody teaches you, the stone can teach you what you need to know.  

In the absence of observation and instruction, athletes, writers, sculptors, artists, explorers, inventors, and the stone whisperer...can learn from nothing but the ball, the pen, the canvas, an instrument, a tool, the stars, the wind, a block of wood, or a simple rock.  

It has been said that some excel at observing, while others excel at processing instructions.

Seems to me now, that there are those that can learn from stone.

The Song Adoption Formula

Published in 2010.

To the extent that a recording artist (versus an entertainer) is the sum of his or her songs, I am going to stipulate that song-adoption equates to artist-adoption.

I effectively use this formula when working with industry startups and artists to concisely communicate (usually on a bar napkin) the challenges that artists face as they attempt to obtain marketplace traction for their songs.

I have updated the formula (below) to recognize the importance of placing unknown songs into a series of songs that are familiar to listeners (the Adjacent Song Factor).

Fans = L * OFR * SSR * RR * ASF
Fans = Listeners * Optimal Frequency Rate * Social Situation Rate * Resonation Rate * Adjacent Song Factor

• Listeners - a song obviously needs as many listeners as possible.

• Optimal Frequency Rate - a song needs maximum spins (plays) within a compact span of time.

• Social Situation Rate - a song benefits from maximum socialization during that same time period.

• Resonation Rate - the percentage of listeners that a song easily resonates with.

• Adjacent Song Factor - the frequency rate in which a song is placed into a series of familiar songs.

The formula stipulates that for a song to obtain maximum traction, all the variables in the formula have to push up and max out.  If you plug the formula into a spreadsheet and play around with scenarios, you will notice (it’s all multiplication), that a single low variable sinks a song (this is important). In other words, you need ALL the variables to work for you to maximize the conversion rate from listeners to fans.

Here’s an extended description of the variables:

Listeners (L)
Listeners (L) is the variable that equals the number of listeners (not fans but receptive listeners) that have frictionless access to your song via a download, a music stream, a broadcast, or by way of receiving your CD.

Optimal Frequency Rate (OFR)
It’s often stated that falling in love with a song is a complex process. For the purpose of this post, I am going to speculate that a song needs to be heard by the average person at least 10 times within 60 days to make a shallow (but lasting) memory imprint. Therefore, 10 spins within 60 days equals the Optimal (maximum) Frequency Rate of 100%.

Less spins over a longer time period equates to a lower Optimal Frequency Rate.

Social Situation Rate (SSR)
Once again, the imprinting/socialization process is complex. Most (young) people need social cues (signals from others) to believe in (adopt and evangelize) a song. When people spin songs in a vacuum (think about the lone iPod user with headphones on), they are less likely to have an imprinting experience than during a shared/social listening session.

Social settings (where social cues are gathered) range from listening to songs with friends, to hearing songs at a club or party, to sharing/playlisting/promoting songs to friends online. In a perfect world, 100% of a song’s early spins would occur within a social situation; this would equate to a Social Situation Rate of 100%.

All social situations are not created equal. If you want to be more specific, assign varying weights to different social situation types.

Resonation Rate (CR)
Resonation Rate is the subjective component of the formula. Listeners are going to love your song(s) along a spectrum. A percentage of listeners (this would be the resonation rate) are going to adopt your song, while others won’t give it a second listen.

Adjacent Song Factor (ASF)
A recent study has shown that listeners easily tire of screening unfamiliar songs. The more often that a song is played within a playlist or stream of familiar songs, the higher the Adjacent Song Factor is going to be.

Now in simple terms…
You need a ton of listeners; a lot of spins within a compact time period; spins that occur within social situations have more impact; you obviously need a great song; and your songs are more likely to be received when sandwiched between pre-existing hits. Sounds like radio doesn’t it? 

Don’t go over the self-promotion cliff, crush your local radio station instead.

Written in 2009, I got this one wrong, but there are some valid points in this post. Perhaps I was twenty years too early?

The more that I read about the latest and greatest music marketing trends, the more I want to stand up on my desk and shout “don’t go over the cliff with the rest of the lemmings!” But, given the current hype and the herd mentality that artists usually exhibit, twenty-four months from now 5,000,000 artists will be using Twitter and fan relationship management tools to attempt to acquire fans and/or to boost average-revenue-per-fan (ARPF). When I think of the prospects of millions of artists traveling down this road, ARPF is exactly what I want to do. Three years from now, most artists will be disappointed and a new crop of artists will be jumping off a different cliff altogether (remember the MySpace cliff?).

The famous hockey player Wayne Gretzky once said: “A good hockey player plays where the puck is; a great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” In this post I want to uncover the obstacles to self-promoting music and suggest an alternate path that will take you where the puck is going to be.

Self-promotion obstacle one - online fragmentation
The Internet is not one big homogeneous, connected web of word-of-mouth amplifiers. The reality is, music consumers are frequenting a hundred different disparate sites and they are engaging with music in a myriad of ways. An artist is extremely fortunate if he or she can attract a large audience within one or more of these online fragments at a time. Great songs do go unheard. Don’t buy into the hype/myth that putting your songs into ten online stores and upon fifteen social networks matters. It doesn’t. Consumers need filters and the imprinting that results from radio-like repetition.

Self-promotion obstacle two - geographic fragmentation
The English-speaking world is comprised of over 1.6 billion people. The fragments that may enjoy your brand of music are going to be spread out all over this world. The combination of online fragmentation combined with geographic fragmentation is a matrix of target and reach challenges that’s extremely difficult to overcome given the promotion budgets of independent artists.

Self-promotion obstacle three - the need to obtain multiple impressions 
Once you have sorted out the fragmentation obstacles you have to start thinking about obtaining multiple spins for your song or video. Depending on the song, after a certain number of spins and/or live appearances, some X percentage of listeners may become fans; chances are it’s going to take more than one spin. Previously, it was easy for music marketers when radio was the biggest source of repetition; now spins have to be had within a variety of devices (iPods, cell phones, laptops, etc.) and upon a variety of ‘radio’ options (terrestrial, internet, satellite, cable TV and wireless).

At this point in the post, visualize the multi dimensional music promotion matrix that includes online fragmentation, geographic fragmentation, network fragmentation, device fragmentation, consumer preferences, and consumer behavior.

Self-promotion obstacle four - delivering the right online value proposition
A value proposition answers the question: “What does this product or service do for me?” Does the product make me smart? Does the product make me sexy? Does the product make me healthy? What does your music-related website do for me? For 99.9999% of all artists, the answer to that question is: your website informs me and that’s it. Your site tells me: who you are, where your next show is, what you look and sound like, how to obtain your music, and how to purchase your tickets or merch. What you site probably fails to do, is to truly entertain ‘me’ (as in consumers).

A playlist filled with your songs, two of your videos and pictures of your cat is not entertainment that can compete with all of the other forms of online entertainment, and it’s probably not entertainment that you can build a sustainable, product-shucking, cash-generating brand upon. To begin to solve the puzzle of obtaining multiple impressions on a low budget from a highly fragmented and geographically dispersed target audience comprised of overloaded consumers that don’t want to spend more than .99 cents for a song, you are going to have to grow beyond ‘informs me’ to deliver ‘entertains me’ and more.

Self-promotion obstacle five - overloaded consumers 
Five years ago, in any given marketplace the impressions (the spins) were simply delivered through five to seven competing radio stations featuring separate to overlapping genres of music. Now, not only have the listening options expanded, every kid with an electric guitar and a TuneCore account is promoting music. Self-promotion will not scale; there are not enough receptive consumers to absorb the marketing messages or to take on the spins that are needed to convert listeners into fans for all the artists attempting to do so. When three million artists start pounding out emails, tweets and fan management action items, the whole lot of you will start to seem like stockbrokers at a cocktail party. 

Self-promotion obstacle six - minimal ROI
Dollars that were once earned from three to four revenue sources are now pennies earned from hundreds. Given the investment you have to sink into solving the Rubik’s promotion cube divided by the revenue you generate from all sources, the return seems hardly worth bothering over. When a million artists generate one dollar of revenue each, who makes the real money? The aggregators that collect a percentage of every dollar processed are the ones generating a reasonable return on investment; it’s certainly not artists. 

Yes there are independent artists earning a sustainable living, and there may even be one or two that are making a lot of money. However, show me another industry where the gross / aggregate investment (time and money) across all of the participants generates such a negative ROI. When this industry had (past tense) a massive upside lottery component to it, the potential reward mitigated the risk. Now, if you are going to go over the dream-chasing cliff that the tech providers are currently peddling, you better be doing it for the love of your art (period).

Go where the puck is going to be…
Look at the fragmentation of the music consumption marketplace this way: genres are coastlines, niches within genres are beachfront properties, and standalone artists are rocks or grains of sand. Sticking with the metaphor: coastlines and beachfront properties are compelling, interesting and entertaining; rocks and sand are things that get stuck in your shorts and sandals. 

IMPORTANT - the competition for consumer mindshare (when it comes to music consumption) is going to be fought on the battlefield where the war is over which ‘channel’ can deliver the most compelling entertainment (underline) to any given market segment. Moving forward, trusted entertainment channel providers - filters that can continuously find great songs for a niche - will have access to consumers as surely as consumers desire to gain access to the beach; alternatively, attempts by standalone artists to ‘manage’ relationships with fans will be as welcome as sand in a sandwich. 

Pick a niche, band together, form a channel, attack radio…
Radio stations and the radio industry are vulnerable right now. The radio spectrum, the broadcast antennas and the satellites that define traditional radio are becoming an expensive liability (think debt service and operating costs). More and more consumers are switching to online listening (internet, iPhone, etc) as the preferred method to consume ‘radio’ programming. When this happens (and it’s happening) there’s really NOTHING that a conglomerate of artists can’t do FAR better.

Better than radio…
When it comes to being the ‘channel’ that can deliver the most compelling online entertainment (to a targeted niche) radio stations can’t compete with an organization of artists and/or rightsholders working together (referred to as ‘you’ from this point onward). Here are just some of the distinct advantages ‘you’ have:

Advantage one - the cost advantage. Radio stations have legacy costs (mentioned above), they have to pay royalties and they have high (relative to you) operating costs. You can put together an operational and a legal structure where all your costs are far less. Moreover, you are probably going to be selling your own product (music, tickets, merch, ringtones), which means you don’t have to attract numerous annoying advertisers (ads are annoying); just one or two sponsors will probably suffice.

Advantage two - the entertainment advantage. Just streaming music is yesterday’s entertainment. Broadband speeds are expected to rise substantially over the next few years, which will increase demand for all forms of high definition audio and visual content. Your ability to provide hours of HD video and thousands of relevant images (think high resolution, flat panel wallpaper coupled to music) blows away what a radio station can provide; moreover you own it, radio doesn’t.

Advantage three - the niche advantage. Radio stations stock their playlists to satisfy the widest possible segment within a genre; it’s the most common denominator approach that mass-market media outlets always pursue. This won’t work on the Internet. The Internet is about sub-segments, fragments and niches. You can splinter a radio station’s audience by promoting a superior entertainment product to a sub-segment of listeners.

Advantage four - the personality advantage. You are not bound by the restrictions placed on radio and you are not (should not be) confined to the traditions and practices that define the personality of radio; you can be something completely different. Furthermore, the local radio station jock is a middleman between you and your fans. Within your online community, you (collectively) can supply highly relevant, direct, continuous and simultaneous interaction.

Advantage five - the promotion advantage.
Take away radio’s satellites and antennas (which are becoming irrelevant), and you are competing against five guys withering under relentless budget cuts that are trying to survive an unprecedented downturn in ad revenue receipts. Your ability to leverage 100 artists and 100,000 fans to promote (for free) a single brand / community will trump anything these low budget operations can put into a niche market. Furthermore, an organization of artists pulling together can overcome every promotion obstacle listed above. 

I found the puck, how do I score?
Clearly, there’s a lot of wood to chop to take on radio stations in any market or niche. This is a blog post not a book, so there’s lots of missing details… Here are some execution ideas and obstacles to think about. 

Stocking the pond…
It’s essential to find unencumbered songs (no strings attached - any deal is possible) that squarely appeal to the niche you are targeting. Each song will have to meet a quality threshold and you will have to monitor your traction analytics (plays, skips, session ends, downloads, etc.) to determine when it’s time to say goodbye to certain songs. You will also have to set all politics and personalities aside when programming your station. Death occurs for a proposition like this when you start spinning songs and featuring videos because you like the person more than his or her music.

The incentives and the deal structure…
Consider this fictional example:

• 100 artists contributing 100 songs are on board initially - more could follow.

• Participation in the program is non-exclusive.

• (Although, I think exclusivity will ultimately be better for everyone involved.)

• Each artist will send 1,000 fans to the ‘channel’ within a year.

• Each fan will stream every song three times (on average).

• Which means - each song will receive 300,000 spins.

• At a 2% conversion rate, each artist will generate $6,000 in music sales (average).

• Everything takes place over a rolling twelve-month period.

• Due to participation in the channel - every artist will see an increase in show traffic.

• Due to participation in the channel - every artist will obtain a portion of sponsor revenue.

• Due to participation in the channel - every artist will share in branded merch revenue.

• The channel should be jointly owned by the anchor tenants (most popular artists) and management.

• New artists and songs are introduced to the channel through any artist or fan of the channel.

• Note: the numbers above could be much higher or lower depending on the artists and the songs.

Management’s responsibilities…

• Recruit (sign) the first 100 artists / songs / videos and associated images.

• Utilize the latest technology and infrastructure to provide a compelling online home for the channel.

• Deal with all of the legal docs, reporting, payments and tax forms.

• Provide participating artists with everything they need to uniformly promote the channel.

• Eliminate all middlemen that extract percentages.

• Only use services and products that are sold on a fixed-cost, fixed-fee basis.

• Compel participating artists and fans to contribute video and images.

• Put listener-driven, artist-driven and management-controlled mechanisms in place to maintain the most compelling mix of online content.

• Be mindful that you are not managing artists; you are managing an entertainment channel.

Here’s a possible scenario for the distant future:

• Channels will bid for the rights to exclusively feature songs and/or artists.

• There will no longer be radio stations that play new music.

• There will no longer be content aggregators.

• iTunes will relegated to back catalog; new songs will be on channels.

• Widget providers will merge into channels or disappear all together.

• There will be no music-related websites/social networks other than the channels.

• Artists will own a chunk of the channels (teams) they play for.

• Consumers will simply flick (think iPhone) from channel to channel.

The End of File Sharing

Written in 2009

Can you say stuck in the past? According to the news, the new U2 album has been downloaded illegally over 400,000 times since it was released. While this isn’t a number to sneeze at, it reminds me of the mulletheads that put hood scoops and air blowers over their carbureted engines in the early 1980s. When the rest of the world switched over to fuel injection, the mullet-powered Camaro became a thing of the past.

Someone click over to Torrent Freak and tell darkshare, labeldeath and redfilephantom to garage the Camaro and trim the mullet. Fuel injection has arrived. Sorry angry dudes, the cost of acquiring a music collection is approaching zero, while the cost of listening to whatever you want is no more than a 30 second ad spot for every sixty minutes of music. Look at the Google search trends for Free Music, Free MP3s and File Sharing. Sharing volume may be up, but the four-year search trend is down. Smart people are finding better ways to consume music.