BookLog: The Dip by Seth Godin

Here are a few quotes from this fascinating book The Dip. A few of my favorite quotes.

Every new project (or job, or hobby, or company) starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point-really hard, and not much fun at all.

And then you find yourself asking if the goal is even worth the hassle. Maybe you’re in a Dip-a temporary setback that will get better if you keep pushing. But maybe it’s really a Cul-de-Sac, which will never get better, no matter how hard you try.

I am sure you can relate to this.

If you’ve read Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail, this isn’t news to you. But I don’t care about long tail right now – I want to show you the short head. The short, big, profitable head. That is the juicy share of the market, that belongs to the top of the lis

Seth contends that the top few players (the short head) get disproportionate share of the market.

You may be sure that your product is the best in the world., but no one outside a tiny group cares at all. You’re busy pushing your new idea wherever it can go. Meanwhile most consumers wait fro something to be standarized, tested, inexpensive, and ready for prime time.

One of the most astute observations about new ideas.  If true, this is a bit depressing for startups with new ideas. It is not that they will fail. They just have to be ready to face a big steep dip.

Short term pain has more impact on most people than long term benefits do.

Seth talks about why people quit. Quitting is not failure, he says, especially if you decide the conditions under which you will quit well in advance of starting your initiative.

Influencing a market, on the other hand, is a more a hill than a wall. You can make  progress, one step at a time, and as you get higher, it actually gets easier. People in the market talk to each other. They are influenced by each other. So every step of progress you make actually gets amplified.

Influencing a market is difficult. A few support you and a few others reject you. But the biggest problem is that not many people in the market have heard of you. How do you fix that?