I hate when people give their opinion on what is good and bad. The only thing that matters is what works in an actual test. The writers at TechCrunch need to understand that the only thing that matters in a new company is results… Not what they think is cool.
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Hey, everyone. This is Russell Brunson with DotComSecrets.com, and this is the “Marketing in Your Car” podcast. This is the first podcast where I haven’t actually been in my car. I’m actually at my office right now, because today I’m going to go on a little bit of a rant. The title of this rant is “Your Opinion is Irrelevant” [laughs]. The reason why I’m doing this, and you may think I’m upset, but I’m actually really, really excited.
Rippln got written up in “TechCrunch”. TechCrunch is a huge tech blog, and most people dream about having their company, their startup, talked about in TechCrunch. So that was an exciting thing, except for the fact that the TechCrunch articles says, “What Not to Do in Your Startup Promo Video”. Now this made me smile, because I was the one who created the startup promo video. I wrote the copy for it. We got it animated, and we’ve used it to roll out. Now I’m going to read you this article first. I’m going to bleep out the curse words, because he uses a lot of them, but this is what it says.
It says,
“Thanks to my job, I get to see a lot of stupid B.S., most gets filtered out, but every now and then, something just rises up that’s so ridiculously stupid, it’s just begging to be called out. That’s the case with this promotional video from the kind folks at Rippln , which is more or less a two-minute case study for how not to pitch your soon to be ultra-viral app to the general public, or to the press, or to potential employees, or investors.
So, here’s the step-by-step of what not to do in your video. First, don’t tell us your app is going to be viral before it’s even friggin’ released. Second, don’t expect the press to cover your stupid app before it’s been released, except for maybe in posts parodying it. Number three, don’t assume your friends or family members will be talking about it. Likewise, don’t assume strangers will be coming up to you on the friggin’ streets to talk about it. Number four, don’t say your stupid app is going to change the way we communicate, or call it “the biggest breakthrough since e-mail”. Next, don’t promise that your app will change how commerce, either online or off line, is happening – definitely not both. Don’t promise again that your stupid app is going to go viral. Don’t compare its growth to Facebook or Twitter. Don’t pretend to know how people were talking to Mark Zuckerberg in the cafeteria at Harvard or how he would respond. Please don’t bring Adam D’Angelo into this. Also, if you must, don’t say he looks like a thirteen-year old. Don’t try to impress me with Adam D’Angelo’s net worth. Wait, why are we talking about Adam D’Angelo again? Don’t make your stupid app sound like some sort of exclusive club with an inner circle, and talk about how lucky we are to be able to be invited in and “curse word”. VELVET ROPE? INNER CIRCLE? F*, NO. INVITE FIVE LEADERS? WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU? Don’t say there’s a brief window for me to join, but please, if there is, let’s hope this abominable window closes soon, because this startup sucks. Don’t pretend to have trade secrets. Trade secrets? Don’t refer to an NDA when you really mean personal information collecting form to use in our B.S. marketing. Also, who signs an NDA on YouTube? And don’t participate in the general douchebaggery which pretty much describes this entire video.”
When I read that, at first I was kind of upset about it. Then I started thinking about it. I want to show you guys some of the stats, because if you haven’t seen what’s been happening behind the scenes in Rippln, it’s going crazy.
In the first seven days, we had over 150,000 people register for this site by filling out an NDA. Now this is through a manual process. No one has been able to mass-promote it, so it’s kind of cumbersome to even have happen, yet, holy cow, it’s working. Right now, it is growing faster than Facebook or Twitter. Right now, it is going viral. The press is covering it, including TechCrunch [laughs], whether they like it or not. Most people’s friends or family members have talked to them about it, and total strangers have been contacting us about it, as well. Right now, the app is changing how we communicate, so it’s kind of funny that all of these things that he’s angry about have all been prophetic. Every one of these things is happening and has happened.
The fact that there’s this huge divide means that the copy on the video worked perfectly. The goal with copy and with a video is never to unite everyone into your cause. It’s to split people in half. When you split people in half, there is polarity, and polarity is a good thing. It creates an “us versus them” situation, and it’s good, so when all is said and done, he’s giving his opinions about why he does not like the video, yet the video is working. It’s working like crazy. It’s helping this grow out faster than any other tech company, any other startup that I’ve ever seen. Based on our current numbers, projections for month number one, when Rippln goes live, are $100,000,000 in month number one, which is interesting, considering most startups that are featured on TechCrunch don’t make any money. In fact, there’s one guy’s comment down here that I really appreciated, and so I’m going to read them to you guys, too.
He says,
“One of the biggest problems you have in the tech scene is lack of marketing ability. You have people who have amazing products, apps, software, et cetera, but nobody ever hears about them. One of the big reasons behind it is the aversion that people in the Valley seem to have to effective direct marketing. People see that firms like Google and Apple hate direct marketing, so they figure they should, too. Well, Google and Apple both have billions of dollars at hand. They can afford to hate the most cost-effective form of advertising in the world. People are afraid to sell, because they don’t want to look like jerks or douchebags. Well, personally, I feel like more of a douchebag if I couldn’t make the mortgage than I would by aggressively selling to people. Amazing products go undiscovered and companies go broke in the Valley every single year because people are afraid to push the envelope a little bit with marketing. There are billions-of-dollars companies in the Valley that could have an amazing impact on people’s lives, but they will never get the chance, because people in the Valley are afraid to sell.
Anyway, back to my starting point here. In my original post, I acted like a jerk towards the author, and I apologize for that.”
And he goes on about how he’s not a part of Rippln, and blah, blah, blah. Again, I want to come back to how someone can write an article about why something doesn’t work, which this guy’s trying to do, but it’s working. He says, “What Not to Do in Your Startup Promo Video”, and this happens to be the most successful startup promo video in the history of the Internet, and he’s telling us that it’s a bad case study. Yet it’s working perfectly, so I think it’s ironic, and it makes me smile and makes me laugh.
I just want everyone to understand that your opinion does not matter. Right now we’re finishing up our first issue of the new “Dot Com Secrets” lab’s newsletter, which has been all about the split test we ran. In ninety percent of the split tests we ran, I assumed that the other version would win, and I was wrong. Our opinions do not matter. The only thing that matters in the marketing world is what works, and this obviously is working. Today we should pass 200,000 people in Rippln, and again, we are eight days into this thing, so I’d like to see TechCrunch or any of the other companies featured in TechCrunch do something that’s even close to that with their startup videos. Yeah, it’s not going to happen.
So if you want an example of good copy and what’s working, and you don’t care about your opinion, you just care about what actually works in this world, check out the Rippln NDA video, or just go to TechCrunch and read their article, and tell them your opinion about the fact that, “Your opinion doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is results, and, holy crap, this is getting results.”
So there’s my rant, you guys. Don’t be shy about your marketing. You’re right. They’re wrong. Do whatever works. That’s how you’re going to change the world. You don’t change the world by being scared of selling and by hiding behind fancy company names and a bunch of other crap like that. There’s my opinion. I hope you agree with it. If not, I don’t really care, because, again, your opinion doesn’t matter in this situation. The only thing that matters is what works, and this is working like crazy.
I appreciate you guys. If you liked this podcast, please tell your friends about it, and also, I’d love if you would leave any feedback on our channel. We’re trying to get some more feedback, because we’re a brand-new podcast, but we’re having fun so far, and we’ll talk soon. Thanks, everybody.