Category: Promotion
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Pokopia
For decades, Pokémon games have largely held the same premise and core mechanics. (e.g., You play as a person who chooses one of three starter Pokémon, catch more along the way, level them up by battling other people, adventure through eight cities or towns and beat each one’s respective gym leader, beat the Elite Four,…
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Remembering a restaurant
A few years ago, my wife and I visited Tokyo together for the first time in December. We’d arrived inbound from Chiang Mai, with a layover in Busan. It felt like travelling from summer to winter. By the time we had settled into the hotel, it was the early evening, so we searched for a…
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Success happens when you teach someone how you think
You’re looking outside a window, and you see a tree. Somebody else is looking outside a different window, and sees the same tree, but from a different perspective. Success happens when they decide to come over and stand at your window for a little bit. You discuss what you both see. Then, maybe you go…
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Rethink your product’s price, packaging, and promotion
A few weeks ago, memory chips got more expensive. This would affect pricing for a lot of companies that needed these chips for their devices. Nintendo was one of these companies. In one view of the world, a deeper vertical integration would’ve helped solve this problem; if Nintendo made its own chips, it would have…
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Vinyl isn’t just about the sound
In 2025, people bought over 45 million vinyl records, spending over $1 billion in the process. What’s more surprising: a stat from 2022 suggests that 50% of vinyl buyers in the US don’t own a record player. To a vinyl collector, this is absurd, and perhaps even heresy. What would a person do with a…
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A house with its own website
The other day, I saw a house for sale with the usual realtor’s name, company, and usual other info, and then a dedicated URL for its address. For example, 123SohoAvenue.com. First of all, this was new to me, which piqued my curiosity. I also liked that it suggested the house deserved its own website, which…
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Thanks for reaching out
In drumming up business for writing, I’ve been starting conversations with people, many of whom I haven’t spoken with in over a decade. We talk a bit about business, and mostly catch up about life. The call often ends on a note of appreciation. My conversation partner, now reacquainted, says, “Thanks for reaching out.” It’s…
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Speak directly with your customers
One of the privileges of my early career was working with Ryan Leslie on the project that became Superphone. In short, Ryan noticed that because artists couldn’t communicate with fans, they had to pay for publicity, paid ads, and promotion whenever they released new work. Ryan decided he was going to communicate directly with fans…
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The community circuit
A recording artist earns fractions of a cent each time a listener streams their work. By comparison, a ticket to their show may cost anywhere between $50 to $200. Whether they host their own show, or work through an organizer, they can easily earn thousands of dollars for one night’s performance. This business dynamic exists…