Unleashing the Ideavirus

Unleashing the Ideavirus
29
 www.ideavirus.com
In the other direction was the now famous Steve’s Ice Cream. His prices were a bit higher
than Joey’s, but his profits were clearly much higher. Why? Because there was always a line at
Steve’s. A long line. Sometimes you’d wait an hour to get an ice cream cone.
What happened? Why did one ice cream shop go viral and the other languished at the edge
of profitability? It certainly wasn’t about advertising, because neither shop did any. The
reason Steve Herrell’s shop did so well is that it was famous for having a line! People brought
folks from out of town to have the experience. Locals came back because they’d convinced
themselves that if the hive liked it enough to wait an hour for an ice cream cone, well, it
must be worth it. Suddenly, it wasn’t about the ice cream. It was about the experience.
Most online merchants, being risk averse copycats afraid to innovate, are guaranteeing that
there will be no ideavirus created around their businesses. By paying millions to AOL and
Yahoo! for “traffic,” they’re investing in exactly the wrong sort of buzz. The
alternative—focusing on people who can promote your site, affiliate programs, unique
promotions and building wow, zing and magic into the site—is just too much work for most
sites.

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Unleashing the Ideavirus
30
 www.ideavirus.com
We Used To Make Food. We Used To Make Stuff. Now We Make Ideas.
Here are some astonishing facts you should think about long and hard on your way to work
tomorrow:
Twenty years ago, the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500 either dug something out of
the ground or turned a natural resource (iron ore or oil) into something you could hold.
Today, fewer than half of the companies on the list do that. The rest make unseemly profits
by trafficking in ideas.
In 1998, there were 30,000 new musical CDs published, including one from the Pope (his,
which I like a lot, features a little rap, a little techno and a lot of worldbeats).
Ninety-nine percent of Yahoo’s market capitalization is due to brand, sizzle, user loyalty and
other “soft” ideas. Only 1% of the company’s value is due to actual unique stuff that you
can’t get anywhere else.
Nathan Mhyrvold, former chief scientist at Microsoft, says a great programmer is worth
10,000 times more than an average one. Why? Because of the quality of her ideas.
The important takeaway is this: Ideas aren’t a sideshow that make our factory a little more
valuable. Our factory is a sideshow that makes our ideas a little more valuable!

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