Story
Kevin Ryan's pencil-and-paper studio: $300K and 6 months
Sam admires Kevin Ryan (early DoubleClick employee, ~$20M from the Google sale), who with partner Dwight writes out the math on paper, then funds a company with $300K and 6 months to show traction. Hits include MongoDB (~$21B), Business Insider, Zola, and Gilt.
“Then using that, him and this guy named Dwight would invest $300,000 and give a company 6 months to show traction. The outcome of their companies, there's a couple losers and a couple winners, probably a lot more losers than winners. But the first one is MongoDB. Which is currently publicly traded at a $21 billion valuation.”
Tactic
Market '24-hour power' as '26 hours' — give 2 hours free
Zola markets reliable solar-battery power as '24-hour power.' Helgesen's marketing tip: frame it as 26 hours and give the customer 2 hours 'for free' as a goodwill bonus.
“Yeah, 26 hours a day. Exactly. We give you 2, we get a tip, we give you 2 for free. And that's actually a good marketing tip.”
Steal thisReframe a baseline deliverable as 'more than 100%' and gift the surplus to make the offer feel generous.
Number
Off-grid mom spent $30/mo on kerosene for a single nightlight
A new mother Helgesen interviewed was spending about $30 a month on kerosene just to fuel one nightlight oil lamp — power a $5, book-sized solar panel could replace at 10x the brightness for the same monthly cost.
$30
Monthly kerosene spend for one nightlight · USD/month
“She was spending probably $30 a month on kerosene, which is jet fuel, just to fuel this little oil lamp. And like with a 5-watt solar panel, 5 watts is so tiny. It's like the size of a hardcover book. You can generate enough power to light that house 10 times brighter than what she was getting from that, from that oil lamp.”