I digest a lot of inspirational/motivational stuff on a regular basis and most of it leaves an empty feeling - like the person writing it is inauthentic because no one is superman but it feels like Gary Vaynerchuk is talking to me. In terms of News.YC, he's telling us to build something that will make a niche group of users happy - don't try to go after too big a market - make a small group of users happy and you will excel...
(Felt the need to transcribe one of his 3 min video blogs in entirety just now - apologies for the length of the comment)
Not Lying to Yourself
"not lying to yourself is really the key to any social media, life, business, family, anything
i think what's going on right now is so many people are lying to themselves
they're saying well i'm going to make the next Digg, or I'm going to make the next Facebook, or I'm going to be the next Oprah or I want to be the next Ze Frank
what you really need to do is to embrace who you are. it's a DNA game. you need to know who you are. and uh really that's why some of the things are working for me
i stopped doing what i was doing and I said i need to do something else for my heart and soul. I stopped lying to myself (not that I've ever been a big liar to myself) but I think a lot of people are lying - they think they can do things they can't or more importantly they think they can't do things they can.
and i think going forward, in this age of personal brand, where the barrier of entry to have a personal brand in the world is now zero - uh the people who are going to be able to stop lying to themselves and embracing what they're about and not being worried if the niche is too small are going to be the people that are going to excel and win and win in heart -
for example, i think too many people are trying to keep apps that are so huge or trying to develop brands that are so huge or trying to say they are experts in such a global thing. narrow it down to the thing that you are most core about. if you are the biggest expert in basketball, fine do a video blog on basketball if that's what you want. but more importantly if you're a bigger Clippers expert maybe that's what you should talk about. even if there's 45 fans that you have in the world. those 45 fans will bring you the happiness that someone else might have if there a million. not everyone is going to be Oprah, not everyone's going to be LeBron James. but trust me there's a lot of ways to be very very happy if you're just yourself. yourself is the victory in this social media game and in this world and with no privacy and personal brand becoming bigger and bigger every day
the people that stop lying to themselves are going to be the people that the world embraces"
(Felt the need to transcribe one of his 3 min video blogs in entirety just now - apologies for the length of the comment)
Not Lying to Yourself
"not lying to yourself is really the key to any social media, life, business, family, anything
i think what's going on right now is so many people are lying to themselves
they're saying well i'm going to make the next Digg, or I'm going to make the next Facebook, or I'm going to be the next Oprah or I want to be the next Ze Frank
what you really need to do is to embrace who you are. it's a DNA game. you need to know who you are. and uh really that's why some of the things are working for me
i stopped doing what i was doing and I said i need to do something else for my heart and soul. I stopped lying to myself (not that I've ever been a big liar to myself) but I think a lot of people are lying - they think they can do things they can't or more importantly they think they can't do things they can.
and i think going forward, in this age of personal brand, where the barrier of entry to have a personal brand in the world is now zero - uh the people who are going to be able to stop lying to themselves and embracing what they're about and not being worried if the niche is too small are going to be the people that are going to excel and win and win in heart -
for example, i think too many people are trying to keep apps that are so huge or trying to develop brands that are so huge or trying to say they are experts in such a global thing. narrow it down to the thing that you are most core about. if you are the biggest expert in basketball, fine do a video blog on basketball if that's what you want. but more importantly if you're a bigger Clippers expert maybe that's what you should talk about. even if there's 45 fans that you have in the world. those 45 fans will bring you the happiness that someone else might have if there a million. not everyone is going to be Oprah, not everyone's going to be LeBron James. but trust me there's a lot of ways to be very very happy if you're just yourself. yourself is the victory in this social media game and in this world and with no privacy and personal brand becoming bigger and bigger every day
the people that stop lying to themselves are going to be the people that the world embraces"