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Joan Jett holding a beer backstage at the Whisky, 1977. Photo Brad Elterman.

Blake Masters: Peter Thiel's CS183: Startup - Class 1 Notes Essay →

blakemasters:

Here are my class notes, typed in essay form, from Class 1 of CS183: Startup. Errors, omissions, and/or poor phrasing are my own. Credit for good substance and wording is Peter’s entirely.

CS183: Startup—Notes Essay—April 2

Purpose and Preamble

We might describe our world as having…

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

— Viktor Frankl

Adele, Gymnopédies and the Power of Song

“Sub City New York”

Sub City New York from Redglass Pictures on Vimeo.

I first heard Erik Satie’s “Gymnopédies” in Man On Wire, a documentary made about Philippe Petit. In 1974, Petit rigged a wire across the two World Trade Center towers and walked across it, irritating NYC law enforcement and bewildering bystanders below. It was the perfect piece of music for the documentary—everything about the slow, vaguely melancholy piano seemed to belong in and to the film. Technically, Gymnopédies is a three-part piano composition, but that’s besides the point. What it is, quite simply, is beautiful.

Shortly after watching Man On Wire, Gymnopédies surfaced again, this time in an entirely different work of art: a short film by Sarah Klein and Tom Mason of Redglass Pictures. In this dreamy ode to urban life, the filmmakers give weight and acknowledgement to a mundane activity like riding the subway using visuals and music. Although short, the piece has real resonance because of the filmmakers’ ability to capture the tiny beauties of daily existence, like that first batch of sunlight you see when emerging from the subway, or the brief flashes of interaction you have as you meet the eyes of those around you. All of that is really quite intense, but perhaps what seals the deal in terms of emotional resonance is the use of Gymnopédies in Sarah and Tom’s piece. In the same way that the track seemed to fit perfectly in Man On Wire, it also seems to complement Sub City New York so very well—almost as if it were a custom track. What’s really interesting to me is that even though Man On Wire and Sub City New York are two entirely different pieces, they both benefit greatly from the use of the very same song. Why is that?

Enter, the appoggiatura

In the raging din of the world around us, it’s simply magical when you discover a song—any song—that truly moves you. When it moves millions of other people, too, it becomes news. So it’s not entirely surprising that just before Valentine’s Day, the Wall Street Journal ran an article about Grammy winning musician, Adele, and the power her music has to impact so many emotionally. In the article, they argued that people found her music emotionally compelling because of what’s known as the “appoggiatura,” a type of note that injects just the right bit of tension into a song, causing a reaction in the listener. When the appoggiatura occurs again and again, it only amplifies the effect it has on the listener. Bolstered by real research completed by psychologist John Sloboda and more recently, Martin Guhn, it seems that the appoggiatura is a certifiable emotional catalyst in many popular songs.

I’m not educated well enough in music to know if this same technique is used in Gymnopédies, or what its counterpoint here would even be called, but it’s interesting nonetheless to discover the way music has the power to create a very real response in the listener, conveying in a permanent way the often fleeting (yet, arguably, important) moments of life.

Post script: Philippe Petit and his story also ended up in a great book, Let the Great World Spin, written by Colum McCann and available on Amazon.

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Ha!

"But when your competitor spends heavily on marketing its offerings and identifying the pain point both your company and their company solve, that is good for you. It generates additional demand, and some of that demand will come your way."

— A VC: Competition - The Pros and Cons (via illbelieveinanything)

Looking on the bright side

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
— Michael Jordan

So my favorite team, the Boston Celtics, bit it last night against the Miami Heat. LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh will advance to the next round of the playoffs and Boston’s Big Three face an uncertain future. Rondo will recover from his injury and they’re still trying to find Glen “Big Baby” Davis. Catastrophe for Boston Celtics fans, right?

How can we look on the bright side?

Well, for starters, the aforementioned Big Three have had pretty awesome careers and the loss against the Heat last night doesn’t take anything away from that—it can’t. 2008 was a great year, and they’ll always have the memories. But for the scarce younger folks on this Celtics team, last night’s loss is a really good way to learn how to fail (and fail big) and pick yourself up again—and that’s a lesson all of us need to keep in mind. No matter how badly you fail, it’s whether or not you apply the lessons you’ve learned to the future. Take it from MJ (above). Blam.

Don’t let a guy shop alone

My “day job” is running The Cultivated Word, where we’ve made some pretty awesome videos like Entrepreneurs Can Change the World, Thank A Teacher, and Let’s Start a Learning Revolution. Because I think video is an amazing medium, I had some fun videos put together for the project that is now taking over my life: dress.me. Really, the videos are just for fun, but I think they reflect a couple of common problems I’m trying to solve with dress.me: most guys buy the same type of shirt/jeans/etc. over and over again and if they do actually go shopping, the choices can be a little overwhelming. That’s where dress.me comes in: we’re hard at work building a platform for guys to figure out their style, and then find clothes that match it online. It’s shopping on your terms, and you can get as little (or as much) help as you like. dress.me launches June 2011, and you can sign up for the beta on the website.

Please don’t say you’re in stealth mode

At The Cultivated Word, I’ve been fortunate to work with some amazing startups like Skillshare, Grasshopper, Chargify, Swellr, and many, many others. The entrepreneurs behind all of these ventures have provided a lot of insight into what it takes to make a product successful. The piece of advice that I have heard from all of them time and again about launching a business? Don’t become obsessed with staying in “stealth mode.” As a matter of fact, don’t ever declare yourself in “stealth mode.” Share your idea with others to get feedback instead of protecting it like a delicate flower. If you’re really fearful someone’s going to come along and steal your idea, you’re operating under a fall sense of security; based on my experience, it seems like you should always operate under the assumption that someone else is out there developing a product like (or better than) yours all the time. It makes you better at what you do.

Even at this super early point in time, I’m trying to use this philosophy to guide how I build dress.me—by sharing the idea with as many people as I can (obviously, you want to avoid foisting your idea on unsuspecting individuals/victims in some situations) because it makes your product better. If you’re fan of lean startup concepts, you’ll probably like this idea even more, because not being in stealth mode means more potential customer feedback, and ultimately, a better product.

Also, keep this in mind when you’re past the initial stages of getting something live and focusing on developing marketing for your startup. This is a side of the process I am most familiar with because of my experience with running The Cultivated Word. Don’t hold back from your copywriters, creatives and others tasked with marketing your product—let them know what you’re thinking, even if you’re not entirely sure what the future may hold. After all, they’re the experts and can help sort through the intellectual debris and develop amazing marketing concepts from it. If you trust their expertise enough to hire them, let them do their respective jobs!

Whether you’re trying to evangelize your product at the early stages of your venture or marketing it, I’ve learned things work out better when you don’t hold back. If you share your goals with others (even if it’s a big picture concept), they’ll help make them a reality.