Author: Andrea Grassi

If you know me, you’d say that I am a loved person, a person people like to get around with, even an interesting one they might say.

But when I look at any social feed I know I don’t belong there.
I was reminded by this when I read today a post by jason fried. In that post he wrote a passage that resonated quite a bit with me.

It said “These days it seems every announcement begins with a “Today we’re super excited to…” preamble. Whether it’s opening yet another bank branch, launching a 10% off promotion, restocking a t-shirt in size medium, announcing a mega-merger, breaking a new record, or introducing a new colorway of an old shoe, everyone sounds super excited! We’re bathed in it.”

This is it. All the feeds are full and fed of stories like that. Only stories like that.
I get it, maybe we don’t want pessimism, maybe we should aim to ignite some optimism and vision for the future.
I get it. But is this really something that helps us moving forward?

I don’t belong to this kind of communication. I don’t belong to the fact that we obnoxiously share only successes that might not be even that much enthusiastic to begin with.
I think feeds like this miss a key element: Honesty and struggle.

Life’s that way. We fail. We fail a lot and then we try again and after countless times we succeed. We create something beautiful, a flower to nurture. That flower is so beautiful we want to share it to the world so that the world will see it.

Those struggle, where are they? We all hear the Edison story, of how he failed 10000 times before getting it right. When are we going to settle this and start telling our failures? The things that didn’t work out?

Not as a way to spread pessimism, but as a way to teach that every failure can be reverted, that after a failure we can almost always try another time. Few failures are fatal, they _seem_ fatal because of the emotional story we attach to them. They _seem_ fatal because of our reaction to that story.
But they’re not.

That’s why I consider myself a strange social animal. I like being with people, but all I see on the social media is something that seems to me outside of my world and I keep wondering: Where’s the place I should belong?

I became a developer with no reason at all. When I was young my dreams were different, but when the school decided to not open up the courses for what I was interested in, I had to make a choice.

The IT Field seemed to have the most chances of employment and so, here I am, with over 15 years of experience on a topic that wasn’t my first choice and in which, at least to what I know, I excelled in many things and competences.

We all dream of a job that’s a job we love as much as we dream to be in love with the perfect soulmate.
Thing is, you can find beauty, happiness and rewards in things that were not on your radar.

We mistake the joy for the job with the joy of what our accomplishments can give us, how rewarding they can get.

It’s not the job that makes it fulfilling. It’s the work, it’s the people, the achievements, the results, the parties and the failures.

And failures can be a powerful thing.
Today I read of the rise and fall of Flow, an old asan competitor. It struck a cord with me, it resonated so strongly because, as a dev, product manager of my company, creator of a product, and also business owners, that story is my story.

I see many facets of what’s in the life of a product. The hope to find a niche to which you can connect, the idea that you can do better than the giants.

But a failure should give us the opportunity to ask ourselves “What did I miss?” What didn’t we see? What part of the idea wasn’t working?

Developing a product requires you to be in the midst between optimism and pessimism.
You need to be able to dream big, to have a vision, to imagine a new path and future and at the same time you need to be able to foresee the obstacles, the problems, the things that don’t go well, the many ways in which everything can and will go wrong.

If you are too much on any of those side and you’ll either ignore the warnings or be paralyzed.

What is the difference between a small or a big brand?
One has less money then the other, one has less people to manage than the other.

Those affirmations are true, but that’s not the end of the list.
While it is undeniable that a bigger brand does have more power, one thing the smaller brands have is the ability to change direction fast, to adjust to the market faster than a bigger brand.

A bigger brand needs time, time to reevaluate, time to pass the information, time to evaluate the implications, time to plan.

A smaller brand and company, on the other side, doesn’t need much to adjust.
This has happened today to me for example. I received a criticism from a customer and I understood how I undervalued one factor.

I could’ve held my position, to save face for example, but how worth it would it be?
Not so much.
Being able to say “I’m sorry, I did something wrong” is something we should value as a society, something we should aim for.
Ego is always near, pushing you back, but it’s our job to protect not our ego, but our values.

These kind of values are even more difficult to express once a company grows so much. That’s why a smaller brand can have such an enormous power, if used well.

They can make a difference, in their own terms.

If the people tell us that we’re good at something, that they trust our work, that they are sure we’ll be exceptional our first reactions should be to be proud.

Proud only means we’re hiding the things that scare us. We look away from the darkness.
Being proud of something other people tell us is somewhat a weakness because it doesn’t teach us anything. It leads to thinking we’re perfect and that’s rarely the case.

It’s nice to feel that way, it’s easy to feel that way. It’s a shortcut and an illusion, much like when you start dreaming of what would you if you had 1 million dollar.
If you dream of it, you don’t have it. That sensation is not something that guide you, it hides the reality.

What to do then? Be comforted. Reassured by the people that trust your work you know one great thing: You’re valuable. You can do more than what your fear tells you and, more importantly, people know how much value you give.

Do your work, in your best possible way then, knowing that you can fail but if you do you’ll be comforted by those feelings, not blinded by them.

Today we live in a strange world. Not because of the pandemic, but because of how it affected the way we do marketing.

Well, it wasn’t the pandemic itself. This kind of marketing was there long before it. Pandemic simply amplified it.

If you take a spin at linkedin it’ll be quite easy to spot 3 main kinds of content (excluding the useless).

(1) People who share their product or their work.
This is the first group. They’re individuals or businesses that talks again and again about their business, accomplishments, goals, etc.

You spot them easily because they’re kinda like when you start learning something and, from the outside, it’s clear that you’re still struggling.
It’s wasted time for many people because those shares won’t amplify, won’t work, won’t convert.

Why do it in the first place? Social networks fooled us into thinking that each share is powerful.
It’s not. The content that resonates is powerful. That is the key difference.
It might resonate for good or bad reason, but if you’re looking for results, that is the kind of thing you’re after

(2) People who market their product

Well, here are the marketers “old style”. Blatantly trying to sell you something. A course, a job, you name it.
They cling onto an old behavior which might be obsolete as far as we know.

(3) People that tell a story

Here they are. The real marketers, the makers, people with a spark inside their heart, with a story to tell. A story about their life, their product.

When you read them you are attracted by their words as if they’re a magnet. You understand that they know how to write, how to convey a message and they do their craft wonderfully.

How, what’s the difference? is it the same marketing?

First, that craft didn’t come free. Writing, as with any other craft, is something you need to nurture to be good at.
They wrote, a lot. They surely have learned how to tell a story to the world and they believe it.
They’re not after recognition. They are not ego-guided.

They are sharing their beliefs, knowing these belief won’t be for everyone.

People will disagree, and this is part of their success.
Most of marketing focus on having a broad audience.
They don’t care about it.

They’re fine if you’ll stop reading, they’re fine if you won’t buy their product because they know their path, their value, their struggles.
They told these struggles in a story, crafted through many errors, not a/b testing.
Now they stand out from the crowd, they’re the real ones.