Unleashing the Ideavirus

Unleashing the Ideavirus
116
 www.ideavirus.com
A few years ago, there was plenty of cherry wood to go around. People weren’t making much
furniture out of it... it wasn’t in style. Then a furniture designer named Thomas Moser
decided that his fashion sense was telling him that cherry wood would make a comeback.
That once people saw how beautiful the wood was, the idea of furnishing your house in this
warm, comfortable wood would spread through his chosen hive.
Moser built an entire company around cherry wood furniture, and bought thousands of acres
of prime cherry in anticipation of demand. Today, Thomas Moser has grown more than
30% a year for the last ten years, with showrooms in New York and overseas selling $5,000
tables and $3,000 chairs. Not because the furniture is great (which it is) but because he
created a fashion that resonated with his hive, because he launched an ideavirus.

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Unleashing the Ideavirus
117
 www.ideavirus.com
The Money Paradox
The sooner you ask for money, the less you’ll make.
The single biggest mistake idea merchants make is that they ask for money too soon. On one
hand, you want to charge early and often, so you don’t waste time on people who are just
looking, and so you can maximize your income before your idea fades. “Take the money and
run” is a cliché for a reason.
But this strategy introduces friction into the system. Many marketers require people to pay
the most when they know the least. For example, why don’t movie studios run a day of free
sneak previews to get the virus started, and then charge more once everyone wants to see the
movie? Today, if you want to taste a new movie, you’ve got to pay $8 for the privilege.
On the Internet, dozens of new businesses have discovered how important this model is. A
company called eFax offers a service that lets you get faxes delivered to your email box. They
launched it as a totally free service. Why? Because it’s scary enough to be one of the first
people to try something as flaky as eliminating your fax machine. And it’s even scarier to pay
money for the privilege as well…
So eFax has a plan: get people hooked on a free system. Build an ideavirus. Then upgrade
people to a paid system that offers all sorts of extras.
1. Fill the vacuum
2. Achieve lock-in
3. Extract revenue
They can fill the vacuum by getting in first and furious and spreading the virus. They can
achieve lock-in by making it hard for people to switch to a competitor (what a hassle to keep
changing your fax number!). And finally, they can extract revenue by offering value-added
services or selling advertising.
In that order!

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