Hey, happy Monday!
A few days ago a newsletter reader emailed me to ask me to join the Clubhouse because in one room they were talking about how helpful it had been for them to use the FOCUS PLANNER to better manage their time.
Unfortunately, I could not accept the invitation because I have an Android phone and for the time being the social network is dedicated only to iPhone owners. I just logged into it a couple of times using my girlfriend’s iPhone. I liked it.
I have been doing some thinking, not about Clubhouse in particular, but in general about how value is produced and experiences are consumed. I put them in writing.
We are all media companies
It has never been so easy in the history of mankind to publish something that the whole world could read, listen to, watch–consume.
- No need to print texts on paper anymore -> just a blog is enough
- No more need to print photos -> just post them online
- You no longer need a recording studio to record audio or video -> all you need is your cell phone and a streaming service
Anyone who feels like saying something can do so at the lowest possible cost and, thanks to technological advances, with the highest quality. That’s great.
But I used the word “company” for a specific reason. Producing content means putting a red blood cell into the system that carries oxygen in an artery pumping at increasingly impressive volumes.
You may produce content intentionally for the purpose of creating value for you or, whether you want to or not, someone will make money from it by aggregating and distributing that same content instead of you. The magic of the Internet is that it is never a zero-sum game.
Packing and unpacking
The problem with the huge amount of content produced is that it becomes steadily more difficult to find what you are looking for or simply to find good quality content.
You can post your articles on the blog–but who comes to read them?
You can have your music download-but who comes to listen to you?
Tech companies have begun to capitalize on this need by aggregating supply and making it available in a structured way.
Google is the world’s premier aggregator of any public content available on the Web. If you want your content to be consumed more frequently, you need to appear as often as possible in search results. Google has therefore packaged the demand and distributes it according to its own rules.
Google is also good at unpacking demand by moving content that has a geographic location to Map. On News the news. On Youtube the videos. On Podcasts the audios. On Play Store the apps… He packs everything into the results page and to repackage then slowly among the notifications. You create, he sorts and distributes, and of course he gets a piece of the pie. He wins -> you win -> the end consumer wins (we will see shortly that this circuit will be shorter and shorter).
Of course, there is more than just Google. For example, Spotify aggregates all imaginable music (and even podcasts) and makes them available in an algorithmically organized way because otherwise it would be too tedious to search for them alone elsewhere.
Netflix aggregates the best TV series.
Farfetch aggregates the world’s best stores.
There are only two ways to make money: pack and unpack.
-Jim Barksdale via HBR
I am not just talking about content. This phenomenon happens in every industry, including yours.
Some newspapers make the “sandwich” (attachments) to artificially increase distribution.
Entrepreneurs create packages of services and products every day to reach more customers.
As the incremental benefit diminishes other entrepreneurs achieve economies of scale in hyperspecializing and improving the quality of individual micro experiences. They become good at unpacking features that alone can express greater business potential.
Famous is this image, via A16Z, which I attach to you that shows how some now-famous services came about by literally unpacking Craigslist and moving value from the Platform to so many Verticals.
The distance between production and consumption no longer exists
By packing and unpacking … the market becomes a spring that compresses and expands, but you know what happens?
Let’s do an experiment.
Take your snap pen, unscrew the cap, and try squeezing the spring between your fingers.
After you’ve done it for a couple of times it won’t come back the same. It will probably be shorter (if you haven’t pulled it too hard).
Your thumb and index finger are the production and the consumption. As you squeeze they become closer and closer.
No company on the planet is immune to the pressure that technological evolution naturally creates in the system when it makes it easy and inexpensive to create value.
It’s called disruption, one of the most underrated and misinterpreted concepts ever by entrepreneurs, marketers and strategists.
In his latest Ellipses, Valerio Bassan talked about the creator economy, a term he doesn’t like so much and neither do I because it leaves out of the frame an important piece that is technology eating everything…
This other definition of his is more precise: “economics of individual monetization.”
I no longer have to sell content to a publisher, just attach Stripe to your article or activate the shopping function in your Instagram account.
Producers and consumers live in the same server
In Antonio Bellu’s latest newsletter, Letmetellit, I steal and paste links to news about the latest acquisitions.
- Hubspot has acquired The Hustle
- Stripe did the same with Indie Hackers.
- Spotify with Gimlet
- Robin Hood with Market Snacks
- Angel List with Product Hunt
- Twitter with Revue
- Business Insider with Morning Brew
- Mailchimp with Courier
- BMI with StackCommerce
- Clearlink with ThePennyHoarder
What do they all have in common? Each brand bought bought the system to expand its audience.
Francesco Morace called this audience: Consumautori. “Not simply target markets, but producers of unseen possibilities. Creatives who exchange their experiences according to ambivalent moods that drive the standard bearers of segmentation marketing crazy and place the experience of each individual at the center.”
It was 2016, everything was still too complicated. Only today can you copy-paste a script to enable monetization.
But wasn’t there talk of a clubhouse?
Yes exactly. Clubhouse is an inevitable consequence of this bundling of supply. Before someone else does it (there is already a competitor, in sports, it is called Locker Room).
Do you still have the spring between your fingers? Make the thumb touch the index finger. It creates the short circuit.
In Clubhouse you can consume a podcast as you create it.
You don’t think Clubhouse is a No-Profit, do you?
In a post in the official blog they announce, “In the coming months we are planning to launch the first tests that will will allow creators to get paid directly through features such as tipping (tips), tickets and subscriptions.”
It has never been faster to create value and inject it into the system. Every person with an account on a social network is simultaneously a customer and a PR agency.
Three questions for the week.
- How can I aggregate the offer to create a new category?
- How can I create a vertical where I can be the best?
- What is the community where members can be both customers and PRs at the same time?
Good work!
👋
