Episode 10 · 33:09
The Fundamental Principle For Success
The fundamental principle is deceptively simple: find the people for whom the thing is genuinely useful. Dan and Tom discuss rejection, external validation and the mistake of treating a percentage of disinterest as proof that nobody wants what you made.
Success becomes less mysterious when the offer, audience and route between them are made specific.
The useful bits
What to take with you
- A product does not need universal approval; it needs enough of the right people.
- Rejection becomes easier to interpret when the intended audience is clear.
- External feedback is useful data but a fragile source of identity.
- Choose a repeatable route to reach people instead of hoping quality will distribute itself.
Watch the conversation
The original episode.
Full conversation
Transcript
Transcript generated from YouTube captions. Dan/Tom speaker attribution is AI-assisted and may occasionally be incorrect.
Yeah and what is my hot take today and action got a slight cold this is high production right here I've got a new strip light so you can see a slight blue tint because it's because the sun is shining through there you can't actually see it waste of protection absolutely by chucking it down here but um yeah yeah I think it's coming through the clouds so my hot take I guess it's so for context I came up with an idea about three days ago of.
Creating a products page so we are a service based company we are building projects in the background that are products uh thinking of a way with my marketing brain how do we promote them to get people to potentially test them and then we can see if we could just straight launch them and sell them or subscribe the products out to people so sort of different apps or books or whatever so I do the learn idea up here it looks like a great idea in.
This brain or heart or whatever you get your ideas from doodle it I was like actually that's not too shabby and then you put it into figma you actually design it okay I know it's the Bare Bones and you're like this is [ __ ] so I guess the question or the hot take is bringing your expectation but then you hit you what is the word you have a sober mind when you hit the idea the basic idea in.
A design format and it doesn't look as well as you thought it would in draft one so I guess my question is maybe in the creative world because you've been in more in this creative atmosphere and to help all the creators out there how do you a I guess not not make it knock your motivation and how do you ride the wave into draft two three four or the other question I'll let you pick um how do you have realistic.
Expectations on design because I'm sure you've had clients that have had unrealistic expectations hmm all right let's say the first one so it's super funny and I know exactly what you mean right um so it's super relatable so the first one to me let me take you back to The Simpsons The Simpsons has been going for ages right the first drawing of the Simpsons characters were awful right they were rough and then the latest version so if you if you Google Bart Simpson or the.
Development of Bart Simpson right now you will see a picture of back when they're in the 90s maybe of it being like very rough and then you'll see a picture of him in the 2022 like or 2020s um and it's like this well polished machine now basically the second one the most recent current version does not exist without the first iteration so you have to have that first iteration the one that potentially you might be embarrassed about you you need that one.
As a stake in the ground to iterate to the Perfection that's in your mind or to another kind of area because it might be that your mind is just a jumping point and actually it's just the starting idea and it will change over time like in front of your eyes and then in front of your eyes the thing in front of your eyes is a bit different but in itself is good and nice so I've always like thought that the Bart Simpson or.
The Simpsons in general is a great example of like the power of iteration and the power of like starting somewhere so I mentioned last week about the book right I've now released it so it's on Amazon Kindle and I'm in the process of doing it as a hardcover book but interestingly um or a soft cover book you have to have 24 pages which I I didn't know so the Kindle can be any number of pages but the physical book has to be and there's.
Three four pages I'm listening yeah so this is through Amazon doing all the publishing or like the creating the physical book so I'm like oh I have to basically come up with extra pages but I I've got an idea for them I don't know if we should put it on the podcast oh yeah I might as well what would be your idea because I've already basically solved it to some degree so but yeah you tell me your thing right at the top of.
Each page continue this story and let the person draw the next bit that this is exactly what I was thinking so rather than continue the story which is one thread what I was thinking is reinforcing the learning by so the title of the book is try new things so what you could have is like a hangman style um the words but the word try has R and Y dropped from it as page one then you flick over and then new has the two.
Letters drop from it and then third page has things with the letters dropped from it and then like dad mentioned actually what you could do is duplicate the entire story again but with words dropped out to basically uh get the the person to kind of put the missing word into the sentence uh that was missing so it's kind of like a quiz because people like quizzes rather than tests psychologically people like prefer that word um so you could re-jig the whole thing.
Out um with a missing word or whatever or you write it all with the missing photo and you get them to draw it so or you can make it bilingual so then you'd have one side as Welsh from one side is English actually that would be super fascinating and then the cover could be upside down the only thing is the cover would have a barcode on the back so you'd want it to kind of not look too weird but yeah.
Unless you Incorporated the barcode in both designs front and back so it doesn't matter the barcode is like a part of the tree or something yeah yeah it's the bar on your front and on the back it'll be the barcode I think bad joke I like the it's fine we're not going to cut it I don't mind I like the idea of it being English and Welsh in one book because then that encourages people to like to try it like they might never.
Have like tried a book um in Welsh and they have the kind of quote unquote Answers by flipping it and going to the same page so I think that'd be a really cool idea my only reservation is that I want it to be a Welsh book unsearchable by being a Welsh book because you know you can only set one language in a book or at least I I think you can only say one language but yeah maybe that's something that I'm trying so I'm.
Currently working on the the soft cover version of it to see what that looks like and the reason why I wanted to bring that in is because my first iteration is literally line drawings and sentences so each page is broadly like a a short sentence and an a conceptual line drawing now it's funny because people would be embarrassed to show this version right and I'm like I don't I'm I've kind of like removed the embarrassment just because it's just one opinion of somebody else.
Or just many bins and and those opinions do not pay your bills they do not control your kind of like inner satisfaction of doing something and they do not understand the you know I'm I'm very aware of iteration so this is not the end product this is just the first iteration so like the next versions can always be improved so I would say it's all about uh kind of a baseline mindset of iteration is fundamental to everything and that is we exist in a.
World where iteration has been used like the plane the first version of the plane was never flying it didn't fly but over time as they iterated and correct the things and adjusted things and innovated and stuff it then actually began to fly now the planes that we see now are completely different to the first plane we see so we live in a world where iteration already happens we just don't see it because we always see the finished product but what's nice is.
There's a movement of people and specifically on Twitter that have this like building public mentality which is they're showing the iteration they're showing the the the good things the bad things and the process of it like my designs my designs don't look great in the first iteration because it's like it's kind of pottery right it's literally a lump of clay and there's nothing to it and then it starts molding and really there's no there's no form until kind of like a few seconds just.
Before it kind of like is great do you don't mean like there's a process in that and then slowly you start to see the the shape forming of it as it's spiraling around like spinning around and then it gets its form so I think for me iteration is fundamental to the process therefore the first version is not the finished version and the first version is not the last version so and also you need to start somewhere you need to start with someone because.
Nobody works well with a blank page so if you put something on a page then that's a great starting point really um so let's say you've took that starter I'm just reminded of the um is it like a Red Bull thing where people like try and build their own paper plane type of cardboard plane wood and then that Hill yeah oh yeah off the like the highest so let's say you're you're creative enough to get V1 and you jump off the cliff.
You slam the floor how do you or information that you've heard help you get up so then create V2 or carry on or have a laugh or take it on the chin because let's say you've talked about iterations for people that struggle to get anything done so let's say for the people that have done one thing but now it's like the fear of failure or the perfectionism kicking in to be like actually this is pretty poor um how do you get the confidence in it's.
Okay this is part of the process or whatever yeah so I'm reminded of Myers-Briggs right Myers-Briggs is a two female um doctors I think they were Mrs Briggs on Miss Briggs and miss or Mrs Myers they basically came up with a way to categorize the individuals that were left after um after like most people go to war and so you can categorize people broadly speaking and then utilize them in different workforces and different workplaces so the UK could carry on.
Um functioning as a country while a lot of the population were over in war um the specific latter so it's made of four letters the second letter is n or S and so you do this quiz and you get these the outcome is these four letters so the N is like intuition right is it um intuitional to me I always think of n is like big picture or like uh like dreaming and kind of like a large scale.
And then s is a little bit more like detail step by step so if you wanted to categorize that from like a person perspective an N might be typically someone more like a an army General and then a asses someone's typically more so like a soldier like step by step kind of thing um so I I would be like take that as the idea basically what happens at the end of V1 you get like stuck with this idea.
Of like fearful for the next version is the next version going to be as good and I'm like if you're in the S version which is basically like what's the next step or I'm fearful to do the next step the best thing is to flip from the small picture thinking to Big Picture thinking which suggests that this is like you're gonna do this competition like five times so you have like five versions of this to go so like this one now like.
Doesn't matter because you've got five to go so that the best the best kind of like example of that would be like a music artist right with Kim and stuff with music she might feel like oh it's a bit difficult on this track or I'm trying to finish this track and it's a bit hard and sometimes I'm like well literally over your lifetime you're gonna release a thousand plus tracks so this one is just one of many which then ultimately switches the.
Brain from trying to get perspect um trying to get Perfection to be like yeah you're right there's a lightness to it there's this big big picture idea of this is literally just one jigsaw piece in a large jigsaw rather than this is verjix or you know like the final piece or the the piece that has to work and there's no negotiation so I think it's switching from the small picture to bigger picture to kind of help you realize that this is.
Like one of many like we can't exist on one client so if that one client doesn't like what we do that's fine because business never runs on one sale on one one client on one you know product it relies on many products many clients many sales so it's always a game of of numbers so I think that's broadly speaking how I apply it um and like secondary to that there's this like Vision this visualization of what the future looks like and it feels good.
And that's kind of gives you this sense of hope and kind of anticipation for what you're walking towards um metaphorically speaking or headed towards so if you have a real strong visual brain and you can like imagine in a visual way that outcome and then the ups and downs of a moment doesn't affect you so deeply because you know the outcome is that you want to you know design something or build something or create something or feel something or.
You know have a particular lifestyle of something so if that inspiration kind of gives you the energy and the patience and the the kind of the let's get up again like dust yourself off yes of course it's it hurts because we're all emotional beings but dust yourself off because the goal is like this mountain that we're walking to the top of um and of course when you get to that mountain a lot of the time if it is actually another Peak like that.
It's it's changed um as well right the the there's another Mountain that's actually a bit higher and that's actually a bit more refined to what you really really want you know as well so just to recap I would say initially it's um literally forgotten how to recap initially it's iterations then it's big picture little picture with remembering you've got thousands of these to Output so don't get caught up in this first one um because you're going somewhere that builds like hope and and.
Anticipation um which gives you the energy to keep going and do number two do number three do number four so yeah I I would say that stuff sounds good and interesting for sure um yeah it's really like the what what stops you from putting out what stops you is like fear right A lot of the time it's fear um because you think that somebody's gonna laugh at you somebody's going to think that it's rubbish like and and again they're a hundred percent because.
In your own life there are foods that you like and there are foods that you don't like there are films that you like there are films that you don't like you know in your own life you are um freely kind of like going with like a positive and negative take or like things you like and don't like so to think that something that you create a hundred percent of the people 100 of the time are gonna like it is not plausible.
So you basically break down the fear by agreeing and acknowledging that it's likely that there is a percentage of people that won't like this thing and that's fine and a kit and it's a case of like go and find all the people that do like the thing um but if you can reel it back so that's if you need the external validation or external encouragement if you can read it back a bit broadly speaking the reason why I release something and.
Somebody else would be embarrassed to release that exact same thing so for example my life's Journeys which is this the kind of the the IP product and the first episode of trying new things uh out now if if someone saw that they might be super embarrassed now what I love is the fact that I did it not for the response I literally did it because I know that that's the first stake in the ground ready for the 100th version.
Of this IP of the iteration of the character of the 100th episode that's going to be aired in the very much like a Simpsons kind of way so my vision is 100 episodes of life's Journeys or take a bowhead like 100 episodes so why am I getting upset that this version is not quite right when I have 100 episodes to go what I also like so I'm doing it mainly because I've got a thousand so I need to get going somewhere about the.
Execution of that and the and the and the consistency of that the second thing is like I like showing people because basically I want them and especially if they're illustrators or they have this skill I want them to feel annoyed that Dan over here that would on paper not be labeled an illustrator and on paper and not be able not be um not be uh labeled a writer or anything like that was able to get this book out while I've been sat.
Here trying to find the right idea and I have the skills I am an illustrator or I am a writer you know so like those adverts of those like like um app store games and they always die in a very easy way so you get annoyed and you're like I can do that that's way easy I'm like no I'm not gonna download it I'm not gonna fall for it I've downloaded so many games because of the exact same thing and I know it's.
Happening I know it's happening and I'm like oh that looks just like fun to do and yes it is annoying that this person's failing I'm kind of like exactly doing that thing and it's not I'm not doing it just because the Baseline reason is I've got 100 episodes so this is my first one right just getting it out there and then the second like benefit of that is like I really hope that this irritates a bunch of people into action because of the.
Audacity in which I I conduct myself to think that now I literally can put in my Twitter bio author illustrator like do you know I mean now given yes I have some drawing skills when I was a kid I used to run a card business that was illustrations yes but I wouldn't say that I'm an illustrator but again that's also I'm choosing not to label myself because I'm not as good as others but actually I do have drawing skills like I was wrong.
My nephew's um place a couple weeks back and they're all drawing um two boys were all drawing and I was like cool I'll draw with them and I started drawing superheroes and because they were drawing superheroes and stuff and then they realized hang on a minute Uncle Dan can draw an uncle drives down could draw really well so they were like oh can you draw Miles Morales oh can you draw the Hulk oh can you draw Iron Man.
And I was literally just drawing characters for them and then getting them to color them in so I do recognize there is a baseline kind of like Talent a little bit of a talent but I'm not great at drawing faces and and stuff like that so you have to like play to what you know and what you do so going back to the like the percentage of people that I'm going to annoy I hope and let's just say for argument's.
Sake 80 of those people are basically people that are going to be annoyed and literally turn around to their partner or friend to be like look at the craziness and how awful this comic is or this like little book look how bad it is right and they will have the skills they'll be an illustrator or an uh or an artist or a um or a Storyteller or a or a writer or something and they will literally not do anything about it and.
They have zero books in the Kindle store right now right and those 80 I'm not so bothered about those 80 let's say if it is 80 I'm bothered about the 20 the 20 of people that will see the audacity in which I have published my own Kindle book with outline drawings and a decent story and be like heck I'm gonna figure out how to do that for myself generally I'm I'm looking forward for those people to be like the audacity at.
Which Dan Ryland was able to put together this comic book this thing as his one of a hundred episodes um why don't I do the exact same thing so like that super excites me and I guess whilst you're speaking I was thinking the people that are probably got the most fear of others rejecting them or saying it's rubbish they probably have they probably have those thoughts about their own work more than people outside of their brain and heart.
So the thing that you're fearing you're probably living with that person inside you um so it doesn't matter what other people think yeah you're you're you're you're you're you're you're your greatest critic I like your yours at school okay [Laughter] um it reminds me what's that drink that like a milkshake drink is it yo-yo or yolk oh Yazoo I like I said yolk as if it's yolk and then milk put together yolk maybe I'm just it's the sound that you do when you.
Drink this drink so you should yolk it down um actually that's a good tagline he'll get down um can't remember what I was saying so you're you're basically doing the middle finger to all the creatives that should be should be doing their own work and they're like [ __ ] you I'm gonna do the middle finger to you by doing it better and you'll be like you had to buy my thing I hope that you download it enough to be like Oh The Audacity Of.
This enough to create your own better version like you'll naturally be better straight away and this is it like you've got 100 episodes to go to so don't worry like it's just a game of kind of like consistency yeah you're your own biggest critic and you're your biggest gatekeeper and a lot of the time the things you won't put out in public typically are good enough because there's a baseline understanding as of like let's say you're like above average.
At something let's say you're above average at something typically you won't put it out there because you think it needs to be great you know Perfection is the absolute killer absolute killer of progress um which is just funny like it's funny so last night I I shared this book with some friends and I just loved their reaction to it um they they were like happy but I also feel like I kind of like got a little bit of the.
Like yeah I'm out here doing this crazy stuff like to inspire people and and I I hope it inspired them one thing that it inspired them to share was um they've basically started a YouTube channel of recording themselves or their kids playing with toys because there is a trend on YouTube and I need to follow this up there's a trend on YouTube of videos of kids playing with toys that people will watch because your child that you have in the room of course is.
More interested in seeing other kids play with toys than themselves playing with toys which I found was fascinating so they're building a YouTube channel of just videoing like playing with toys and stuff right and I was like that's a great idea so people watch it in the same way you know so it's like twitch but for kids basically yeah yeah you're watching other people game that physical game exactly and they're playing with toys and stuff and it must be just like.
The interest in like the oh what toys they playing with I was like okay so you're filming this like train and you're going down this Loop and you call it twitch R Us yeah touch all right well on the top of that I was like this train chances are you bought this train off Amazon or you can find it on Amazon so you should put them as referral links because if kids are watching these videos of other kids.
Playing with toys and they're like mum and dad I want that toy over there the parent or guardian or what whoever can buy that toy through an Amazon referral link and then you could be making money on literally filming your own kids playing with toys publish it online get a bunch of other kids watching it and then get Amazon referral links and then buying those toys because typically you know we're coming around Christmas season might be the parents.
Want to figure out what toys to buy you know I think that's a great place and then you'd be like hey Toys R Us we have this YouTube channel with a thousand followers or whatever um a thousand subscribers would you want to give us for your toys to play with them and add them as referral links and things I'm like what absolute like when you hear an idea that I could not have physically come up with I could not.
Have generated that out of my own like Dome and then someone shares with me I'm like ah the Finesse is so clever like that is I'm so happy when someone finds an absolute Niche that they fit super easily into you know so I thought it was great and filming your kids playing with toys like that's nothing there's no perfection in that you're not gonna tell your kid hey you know you've played with it incorrectly the train needs to go.
Beforewards not backwards you don't care right it's just about getting it out there in a in a way to build this kind of like Empire which is basically except in pina coladas in Hawaii because these videos are basically making you passive income because they're being watched by kids all over the world and purchasing stuff through Amazon I I thought it was such a beautiful idea of like of course it makes sense I wish I'd thought of that and that is the.
Irritation now I'm not going to buy a bunch of toys and record it out of I'm not that 20 in this case and the 80 but I'm like no no it's like that's great like awesome the cake is absolutely big enough for everybody it's not a few and yeah little and only like the cake is absolutely big enough for everybody so I thought that was such a great idea so if you if you're listening to this and you have kids.
Literally start filming them playing with toys or start playing with their toys and filming it and putting it on YouTube and get Amazon referral links and and attach them to the toys that you're playing with and then once you build up a thousand or or x amount start emailing local toy companies to be like hey we've got this following do you want to give us some toys and we can publish it same way you have these unwrapping videos right or like unboxing sorry.
I was just imagining like if you're recording with toys and then your kids get in a fight and then you could just have like have like a paid wall as if you're about to watch some boxing pay now for my child day and child B type of fight and of course you can keep it you can keep it all safe you don't have to film their faces you can just film their hands right so even from a um safeguarding.
Um kind of position you can have it all Anonymous you don't need to be called like the Rylan family plays with toys or anything like that could all be literally Anonymous and you have this like um this thing I thought it was so so fascinating I love those moments when someone shares an idea that is like I couldn't have come up with it myself and it makes absolute sense for them and they're like doing it and I can see the.
Vision of that idea working out um so my like brain starts like firing off with a bunch of ideas really so nice so as we come to the end what should we call this podcast so people can see the process of how we come up with these ideas um it should be like basically we should say that um titles are always difficult right in YouTube creative pathway through mud yeah the creative struggle I think it'd be like um you've got to do the whole like don't.
Tell them what it is but like insinuate or like suggest what it is so you've got to be like the one fundamental rule to success or the one fundamental rule to creativity or the one fundamental rule to successful output or something like that and then they'll watch it and be like playing with toys you've got to have some anticipation it's interesting on them we also like like Tom said before there is so much more we could be doing.
With this podcast to kind of get out there and iterate and have every sentence like chopped out and stuff like that but we're just like going with it and um I think it's fascinating that some of the titles like when we talk about purpose or Legacy those titles don't really resonate really resonate more which I think is fascinating and what was great like so find your purpose in the creative world yeah fine by building a Legacy Legacy purpose find it here yeah.
It's funny isn't it yeah you have to do the like the buzzwords to actually have someone click on it or have someone watch it or listen to and stuff and I think it's funny like we've had our first piece of feedback uh off the back of this podcast uh one of which is my barley trip was super relatable in a sarcastic way and the second one of which is like all of this content I love what I said we've had the first comment.
And then you said two comments yeah but the first person I think like that was like a hahaha yes okay cool the the the first person to give us feedback is basically laughing at my ability to forget a famous life [Laughter] my ability to forget famous people like Rogue and Josh and turtleneck which is what we'll Now call them from now on and um the fact that um all this content is just making them think and reflect on their own.
Opportunities and their own potential and that made me absolutely Buzz because if this is anything to those like 20 of people that will listen to this and just like self-reflect and think like could there be something more to my situation and my environment my work situation my non-work situation you know to have something a little bit better and it doesn't mean that you have to do it just thinking about it is enough of her satisfaction um for us to keep doing this stuff but.
We're going to keep doing it regardless of whether or not it does land or doesn't land because this is episode one of ten thousand um and this is just creating the bank of information for as not to be well known for for us to be well Earth for us to be known well right so for us not to be well known but for us to be known well so that's a good ending iterate people iterate right.