SXSW: The Art of Speed

3:30 pm - I’m mostly Twittering, but thought I would reprise my liveblogging from last year for this panel. All-star panel includes Tim Ferriss, author of the Four Hour Work Week and Ev Williams, founder of Twitter/Blogger.

3:32 pm - Official panel description: “This session will focus on how to accomplish huge things in little time. From near-overnight IPOs and massive cult followings, to instant NY Times bestsellers and runaway viral campaigns, learn tricks from those who have created monsters of buzz, fame, and fortune.”

3:33 pm - Cali Lewis, GeekBrief.tv. You measure success by when you get kicked off your hosting.

3:34 pm - Tim Ferriss: 4 Hour Work Week hit the tipping point at SXSW2007 (just like Twitter -ed.)

3:35 pm - Mike Cassidy, Benchmark Capital - talking about compressing the funding cycle into one day. Force all the VC decision makers in the room so they don’t give you the brush off. Go meet all VC’s one day. I imagine this must increase competitive pressure. Rapid development; incremental releases. Enforce discipline by releasing product every 2 weeks.

3:38 pm - Ferriss: If you’re not urgent to a VC, you’re in trouble.

3:39 pm - @Ev talks about the word of mouth about Twitter at SXSW2007. When you hear about it from one person, it’s one thing. If you hear about it from three people you know, it’s like, “I have to be on this.”

Facebook achieved this same viral effect by launching on college campuses first.

3:40 pm - Ferriss asks about the SXSW 2007 launch strategy and what it was. Ev: “I wish I knew.” It wasn’t just it being on the screens in the hallways. Part of it was that all the big names in tech were on it, and a lot of people coming here were on it.

3:42 pm - Ev: I always want to work on products I like using. Good rule.

3:43 pm - Ferriss: A lot of resistance to the idea of the 4 Hour Work Week. The two ideas he says has stuck are personal outsouring (to India, etc.) and the “low information diet.” He outsourced his online dating. “Since I live in Man Jose…”

3:45 pm - Lewis: Our method for promoting our product is very much like running for office. Word of mouth. Viral. (If only politics worked this way…) Don’t go out there and say, “Come to me.” If someone has a question answer it intelligently. Don’t proclaim your intelligence or expertness and don’t self-promote in a conventional way. Let them start the conversation. You need to “know passion” to propel your business forward. “There was no ifs ands or buts about it, this is going to happen.” You can fake it, but it won’t work. I love our viewers; love meeting them, talking to them. This is a good explanation.

3:50 pm - Ferriss: If you meet 1,000 people marginally, no impact. If you meet 10 people very intensively, those people will spread the word to 10 more then 10 more and it will grow. If you email Arrington or Scoble, you are grabbing them in the busiest channel. He goes after the thought leaders not the traffic leaders (they are different people) and meets them in person (the least busy channel).

3:52 pm - Cassidy: Start with a clean, simple feature set and let users mutate it. Don’t write a spec for six months with stuff YOU think people will like.

3:54 pm - What are the biggest time sucks in building a growing company? Cassidy: It’s building a team. It’s absolutely critical, but people get caught up in offering $10K extra for a good coder when a good coder is worth 20x an average coder. When people make compromises in building a team, it comes back to haunt you. “Yeah they’re pretty good” is not a good answer.

3:57 pm - Cassidy: Good practice when hiring people. They have their computer, email account, logins, etc. the FIRST DAY. You meet with the manager the first instant to set timelines. This sets expectations of pace and lets the employee know, “Wow, these people are serious.”

4:01 pm - Williams: I develop ideas by writing them out. Don’t get caught up in what the current user base will thing. We would have grown faster (@ Blogger) had we taken away power user features.

4:03 pm - Lewis: Motto for getting started: Stop talking and just do it. With new media, “we’re not in competition with each other.”

4:05 pm - Lewis: Mistakes — promoting too early. First 10 shows are going to be bad, no matter what. First three months were really difficult; we were growing an audience and had audio/video synch issues.

4:06 pm - Ferriss: Everyone here has a “ready fire aim” approach to product development. Because you’re going to get real user feedback. But what are the drawbacks of this?

4:08 pm - Cassidy: If morale is high enough, people will go five months without salary.

4:11 pm - Ferriss: Most effective means of promoting a book is in person. Don’t do phone. On email: he takes an hour to craft each email to a blogger, researches their stuff, finds the parts of the book relevant to them, and gets responses from 80% of them. Does not ask people to review his book. Asks to be interviewed on concepts, not the book. Wants people to believe in the concepts, not the book. Sell the book off the concept.

4:14 pm - Ferriss — people say, “Focus on what you’re good at.” But that’s really hard when people are asking you to do a lot. People respond by either adding or subtracting. Adding people, money, etc. Bad idea.

Warren Buffett’s Berskire Hathaway has as many employees as Twitter.

4:16 pm - Q: How do you execute the 4 Hour Work Week in a small business that doesn’t have the resources to outsource, etc.

Cassidy: Build your network in advance. Don’t hire people when you need them. Don’t ask for money when you need it. Then people will be there when you need them.

4:20 pm - Williams: You need slack in your schedule, so you can respond more quickly and creatively to problems.

Lewis: The Millionaire Next Door inspired me not to go to college. Wanted to be an entrepreneur not work for others.

Ferriss: Read books by people who are at the top of their field. I suck at golf but read Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons which is the best how-to book ever.

Cassidy: I go for a run at lunch and go home at 6:30. There will be an emergency every day regardless. Screw it. Just do it.

4:25 pm - Ferriss: What the heck is Ruby on Rails? Don’t pretend you know what you’re talking about.

4:31 pm - Ferriss: Massive time suck is checking email when you don’t have to. Compares this to alcoholism. Create a “not to do list” that is more important than your “to do” list. Meetings too. Buffett, Schwarzenegger, Andreesen don’t have set calendars. An alternate tactic is to schedule enjoyable, interesting activities where if you cancel you feel guilty, preventing you from self-destructive Crackberrying.   

4:36 pm - Cassidy: Keeps to-dos in an Excel sheet. Prioritizes by long-term / short-term. If you do short-term all the time, you never get to the long-term pile. Move stuff from the long-term list to the short-term list to make sure it gets done that day. Ferriss keeps asking himself: “Does this matter?” There is never a good time to do anything important, whether have a kid, start a company, etc. Just do it.

4:39 pm - Mind-blowingly good panel.

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