February 24, 2021
How Tim Ferris Found Product-Market Fit for “The 4-Hour Workweek” | Starting Greatness with Mike Maples
Key Takeaways
- By creating new words and terms to frame ideas you change language and thus how people think
- This memetic spread that all then links back to you will exponentially grow your reach and influence
- “I’ve done this for every book launch and I often advise startups to do this: look for uncrowded, undervalued channels” – Tim Ferris
- “If you want to conquer the world, don’t try to do it all at once” – Tim Ferris
- When first entering a market you should specify your target audience as much as possible in order to secure that initial foothold to springboard from
- Organic growth by word-of-mouth is the great filter for most startups and products
- Pay attention to the warning signs that people show when times are good as they will rear themselves as far larger problems when times aren’t so good
- The struggle doesn’t always strengthen someone’s character, but it does always reveal their character
Books Mentioned
- The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris
Intro
- Tim Ferris (@tferris) is an author, podcast host, entrepreneur, and investor
- Host: Mike Maples (@m2jr)
Origins of The 4-Hour Workweek
- Years ago, Tim was hired to give bi-annual lectures at Princeton on entrepreneurship
- He would write down the ideas from these lectures in order to fall asleep and these notes eventually turned into The 4-Hour Workweek
- There was never a plan for a book initially, it happened as a result of refining these ideas until they became suitable for a book
- The very first title for the book was “Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit” and then “Lifestyle Hustling”
- “The 4-Hour Workweek” was settled on after testing ~20 titles on Google AdWords for clickthrough rate
- In order to not sound like a pompous Ivy League grad, Tim specifically wrote the book as if he was giving advice to two of his own friends
Category Creation
- By creating new words and terms to frame ideas you change language and thus how people think
- This memetic spread that all then links back to you will exponentially grow your reach and influence
- “I more thoughtful about positioning and category creation more than category domination” – Tim Ferris
Marketing
- Product-market fit for books is necessary before you even start writing
- Tim discovered the product-market fit for his book while lecturing and getting direct feedback from his students
- “I’ve done this for every book launch and I often advise startups to do this: look for uncrowded, undervalued channels” – Tim Ferris
- “The best way to compete, if you can, is to avoid competition altogether”
- “For The 4-Hour Workweek it became clear that television was waning in impact, radio was a stable player, and these things called blogs were incredibly powerful but the publishers didn’t seem to be paying much attention to them” – Tim Ferris
- Tim spent almost all of his launch budget ($10K) on flying out to events with influential bloggers and buying them drinks
- “If you want to conquer the world, don’t try to do it all at once” – Tim Ferris
- When first entering a market you should specify your target audience as much as possible in order to secure that initial foothold to springboard from
- Marketing a bad product is the same as putting lipstick on a pig
- You might be able to bring traffic to yourself with good marketing, but if you don’t provide good value then people will abandon you as fast as they found you
- As they say, the best products sell themselves
- Organic growth by word-of-mouth is the great filter for most startups and products
Startup Advising
- The most important trait of a startup advisor is whether or not they genuinely love the company because only this love will get people through the seemingly insurmountable challenges that will inevitably pop up
- Startup advisors need to both get in the weeds of the company technicals and also be able to relate to and understand the founding members
- “Most startup relationships last longer than the majority of marriages in the US so make sure you can not just tolerate but enjoy spending time with these people” – Tim Ferris
- The startups that Tim has advised who have done the best were all extremely surgical in their usage of Tim
- Every question or request asked of Tim was precise and targeted with concrete objectives
- If you don’t know what hyperspecific questions to ask about your exact needs, then consulting outside help will only be a waste of money
Managing People
- Pay attention to the warning signs that people show when times are good as they will rear themselves as far larger problems when times aren’t so good
- Struggle doesn’t always strengthen someone’s character, but it does always reveal their character
- If you’re considering an investor don’t solely look at their successes, but also how they have acted when companies have failed
