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The myth of “with zero marketing”
Marketing constantly, and practically inevitably, suffers from attribution problems at all scales. Occasionally, someone I’m considering doing business would tell me more about their business’s momentum, and snarkily add, “Oh, and we did all of this without marketing!” The savvier ones pretend that they’re embarrassed about it. (They’re not. It’s a brag.) The main problem…
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Make a map
I recently came across Dishoom’s cookery book, a “highly subjective guide to Bombay with map.” The description very clearly explained a path to becoming a leading thinker or authority on something: make a map. The most obvious place is to start with an area you’re familiar with; where you live, where you work, your favorite…
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What the heck took Yeezy Gap so long?
Here are the facts: As a brand, whatever Gap was doing on its own wasn’t working. If you search New York Times for “Gap,” the latest articles mentioning the company all revolve around Yeezy Gap. Yeezy Gap rolled out two pieces in 18 months; at this pace, the alliance would need to break inertia, otherwise…
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The mythical secret sauce
“How on earth did they find the time to do that?” To learn the skill while they did their full-time job. To juggle the equivalent to two full-time jobs. To write a blog every day. I can tell you, having written at this blog for 150 days now, that it looks more like this: you…
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Yeezy video game history in three snapshots
In addition to Yeezy Gap engineered by Balenciaga drops, Yeezy dropped a video game: I played it. It was simple, not particularly mind-blowing or buzzworthy. But it was also worth appreciating that this has been a long time in the making; it took several years just to get to this starting line. I’m glad Ye…
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Quality control
When I started Wonder Shuttle, I was uncontrollably obsessive with quality control. I started out as a freelance writer, so the first thing I had to do was let go of control. Still, in my mind, every article had to run through me; I was the last line of defense, the buck stopped with me,…
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You won’t know until you do it
The trouble with wanting to learn how to do something accurately—knowing how it’ll turn out, knowing how much effort you need to put in, even knowing the purpose and reasons you need to do it, sometimes—is that you need to do it first. It’s a paradox. Some experiences you can only get firsthand. It’s expensive…
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The elevators start at the tenth floor
I really like what recording artist Burna Boy says to GQ: Unlike a lot of other people, I’ve had to go through never-ending steps to get here, whereas other people have taken the elevator up. I’ve always been too heavy for that kind of elevator, so I had to take the stairs. Now I know…
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Don’t become a content machine
If you browse Twitter frequently, or even occasionally, you’ll probably have become very familiar with threads—when an author connects multiple tweets together by replying to himself or herself. (Old heads like me will still let the term “tweetstorms” slip out.) People write a lot of threads, because people believe that Twitter amplifies threads. And of…
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“As soon as they like you, make them unlike you…”
“A lot of people you see on the internet HAVE to be on the internet.” Donald Glover, Interview Magazine Recently, Rolling Loud festival announced that headliner artist Ye has dropped out of their festival. A lot of Ye fans are, rightfully, righteously indignant—this is the second time this year he has dropped out, last minute,…