Unleashing the Ideavirus

Unleashing the Ideavirus
165
 www.ideavirus.com
Get Big Fast? The Mistake So Many Companies Make…
Why was there so much bloodletting among consumer etailers this spring? How did
Boo.com burn through more than a hundred million dollars in start up cash? Why is
Salon.com, arguably one of the most literate sites on the web, floundering?
The answer for almost all these high profile sites is the same: Get Big Fast isn’t always the
right advice.
Remember, an ideavirus adores a vacuum. So many companies, especially those racing to be
the first to fill a vacuum, spend a huge percentage of their funds trying to prime an ideavirus
by buying huge amounts of poorly executed, poor performing interruption advertising.
Big-spending interruption marketers hope the following:
1.
That sheer bulk will make this bad advertising work.
2.
That sheer bulk will scare off the competition.
3.
That an ideavirus will be spawned and they will become instantly and permanently
popular.
4.
That once they are a center of an ideavirus, their truly flawed business model will
magically make sense. Sort of the AOL effect—you can’t be profitable if you’re small and
illogical, but if you’re big and illogical, you can make a fortune from the companies that
pay you because you have a huge market.
They also fear:
1. That someone else will come along and spend more and move faster than them.
2. That if they take their time, the market will realize that their business model is totally
flawed and they won’t be able to get any more funding.
Alas, the pursuit of an ideavirus has confused their analysis. Instead of viewing themselves as
a natural monopoly, as virusworthy, as needing to fill a vacuum, they could have considered
a very different analysis:

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