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Overnight success?

Written by: Seth Godin

Article Overview: What's the opposite of that? An Overnight failure?

Overnight success?

What's the opposite of that? An Overnight failure?

The idea of an overnight success is relatively new. Joan of Arc, Robin Hood and Sarah Bernhardt were not overnight successes. It took media (the old kind, like TV and movies, and especially the new kind, like Google video) to create the overnight success. My friends Pomme and Kelly are overnight successes. So are some of the characters on American Idol.

Along the way, some people have trained themselves to believe that the only kind of success worth having is overnight success. That if you don't hit #1 the first week, you've failed. That if your interface isn't perfect out of the box, or if you don't get 5,000 people standing in line at the opening of your new store, you've failed.

The Times today reports on Kathleen McGowan, easily considered an overnight failure. She spent years researching and writing a novel. She went to the annual book convention on her own nickel last year, trying to pitch it. Day after day was spent slogging her way to any person willing to look at it. This year, of course, she's back with a million dollar plus advance, feted by booksellers, the whole drill.

Picture_64 Squidoo is another interesting case. Here's a look at our daily traffic, courtesy of our Google Analytics package, since January (I removed four weeks in mid-March, mid-April, because of a glitch with search.) Squidoo has more than 27,000 lenses built by 15,000 people in about five months. No, the chart doesn't look like MySpace or Flickr. What it does look like is the early days of Google and Wikipedia and other overnight failures.

The challenge for observers, investors and partners (like the publisher who took on Kathleen) is to avoid the temptation of buying the media infatuation with the overnight success story (which rarely happens overnight). The challenge for marketers is to figure out what daily progress looks like and obsess about that.

The goal, I think, is to be an overnight failure, but one that persists. Keeping costs low, building a foundation that leads to the right kind of story, the right kind of organic growth. Kathleen wrote a book that she believes in, one that was worth investing years of her life into. And then she painstakingly made progress until she became the next big thing.

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Article Tags: american idol, daily progress, five months, glitch, google, infatuation, joan of arc, kathleen mcgowan, marketers, mid march, myspace, observers, overnight success story, overnight successes, pomme and kelly, robin hood, sarah bernhardt, squidoo, wikipedia, writing a novel



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Broken delivery guarantees - Hi Everyone, I recently had a bad online purchasing experience due delivery problems. A tennis retailer I ordered from had used FedEx's Standard Overnight shipping to try and deliver my package to my friend's place in NY on Friday, August 29th. However, since my friend was at work and the condo doorman was perhaps on a break, FedEx brought it back to their depot. Keep in mind that I was only in NY for the long weekend, so I wouldn't even be able to get my order when they try to make a 2nd delivery attempt. So what's the point of calling it "Overnight delivery" when I didn't end up getting my package the next day? Most residential addresses won't have anyone at home to accept parcels because everyone is at work, so why even bother trying to deliver something during the day if you can't leave it there? And get this, FedEx then tries to deliver the goods again on Tues, Sept 2nd but reports it's the "incorrect address" and there's no such place. But then how come they found condo on Aug 29th? My order was just shipping in their depot on Sept 3rd and according to their online tracking, it's supposed to be delivered sometime today on Sept 4th. We'll see. FedEx's Overnight shipping has turned into 3+ days shipping. What would you do? I was so infuriated that I wanted to just cancel the order and ask FedEx to return it back to the retailer. I've never had any of these sort of problems with UPS.
Re: Broken delivery guarantees - Well just as an update, the package finally arrived on September 4th, which means the FedEx "Overnight Standard Delivery" turned out to take 4 days! I decided to just keep the order since it caused so much trouble. Moreover, I don't want to have to deal with FedEx again to return the parcel back to the vendor.
Re: Success? When does an inventor feel successful? - I have to agree with Mississippi. Why does it matter? The logical thinker would suggest once the inventor has succeeded financially with their invention and can begin their next invention. Others would suggest the process of inventing, brainstorming, and creating is success. Some would say having the mind to think is success. I think from a practical perspective, receiving a patent and submitting your invention to potential investors is success at its most popular ideal. But, that certainly isn't the only measure of success.
Re: Success? When does an inventor feel successful? - I agree with Jude. Success is different to different people, and it is different for one person in is different aspects of life. You can have personal success, business success. For me finishing a very challenging picture puzzle is success. You are only successful if you feel successful.
Craigslist/Kijiji Sales - Would like to know who on this forum is having any success with generating business through Craigslist or Kijiji by posting ads there? What kind of business do you run and what do your ads state? I've been using the sites to generate leads for Foreclosure properties and I've been having some success. One of my Business Coaching client is a software developer and he's been having a lot of success with Craigslist - almost $7000/month. what's your view on it ?


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