Michael Giberson and Robin Hanson are fond of Inkling Markets’ Godfather, Paul Graham. I am not. I am more interested in Robert Scoble, Loic Le Meur, and Jason Calacanis. With other bloggers, they started a discussion on modern-days public relations.
Here are the good points they made, along with my associated thoughts:
-
- A very good product, by itself, will get you users and traction. TradeSports, BetFair, HubDub and NewsFutures attained success because early users like those services.
- The CEO (e.g., Emile Servan-Schreiber, Adam Siegel, Nigel Eccles, and John Delaney) should be the spokesperson of the company. [As a counter-point, see the point #9, there.]
- You should build your community without marketing and promoting in mind —more like entertaining and helping friends of yours, than pitching prospects.
-
- “Evolution is the révolution.” Everything is iteration. Look at the fantastic R&D that BetFair is building into its products.
- Don’t be a smart ass. Be a smart entrepreneur. Start something (a company, a group blog, whatever). That way you will be able to “iterate”. (Remember point #1?
) The best decision that David Perry made in his life was to start off Consensus Point with Ken Kittlitz.
-
- You should create visually rich experiences. Prediction exchanges (like InTrade and BetFair) should focus on developing dynamic, compound chart widgets with customizable news markers.
- You need to reach the “influentials” (the blogging élites). Get to them.
- Have luck. Luck is part of the success. Go reading Robert Scoble’s point #3 on Qik.com.
-
