Brian Feener

No, I have no idea what made someone think that a website dedicated exclusively to Cats in a Sink was a great idea.

What I can tell you is that this is not the future of the internet. (”Man cannot surf on cats in a sink alone.”)

While there are certainly going to be more sites like these that pop up, unless the model is scalable and creates utility (whether its the transfer of knowledge, money, or community), sites like this one will be nothing but niche and mildly profitable.

This brings me to today’s lessons that the greatest businesses are those built on self-propulsion.
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American airlines stranded over 300,000 passengers over the past week.

At this point, what hotel compensation, free flight, or complimentary first class upgrade is going to solve the problem of people not trusting the airline?

Were I running American Airlines, the first thing I would do as a pro-active response to the crisis would be to identify what we can do to show that we actually care for them.  (This is different than just simply caring for their well-being.)  What can we do to show that our process and procedure is designed to meet the customer needs?  Do they just want a sorry?

No, the company can never give back the time that these people lost, but let’s find resources that we CAN replace and do so 100%.  Then go beyond that.

On the record, I do not think that American Airlines is going to be able to recover from this in the short term.  This company is going to succeed or fail based on the strategy they have in the next 30 days.

With the amount of time your company has taken to develop the product, why not take the extra effort to make it worth using?

If I need a computer, someone may recommend a MacBook Pro, an Asus Eee PC, or something in the middle.

If I need a new tennis sneaker, someone may recommend an adidas Barricade, a Reebok CB Court, or something in the middle.

If I want a coffee, I can go to Starbucks, the gas station, or somewhere in the middle.

It’s death to be in the middle.  No one remembers the middle.  You may be able to sell some, but it won’t be as much as if you were able to get your product to not just tell a story, but BE the story.

The more work you do before the product hits the shelves to make it the story, the better chance you have to make an extraordinary item.

No one remembers second place, but they always remember the first and the last.

A toothbrush can be manual, electric, functional, stylish, feature-heavy, single-function, colorful, plain, and everything else.

They are also in every household in America.

How can you make your business more like a toothbrush? What message are you going to send with your product or service?

What does your toothbrush say about you?

Update: Is your product/service’s story compelling enough for other people to tell it? (Thanks to Chris from RawStylus for helping me think of it.)