I was watching TV the other day and this show comes on about entrepreneurs pitching their companies and brands to some of the most notoriously successful business people on the planet.
Prominent billionaires from Mark Cuban to Chris Sacca.
The show of course is no other than Shark Tank to which I admit watching from time to time… Or binging on YouTube if I have to spend time in some waiting room.
Only this time it was different, you see there was a brilliant Chinese-American entrepreneur that just kept impressing the hell out of the panel of millionaires and billionaires he was pitching to.
Here’s where the story gets interesting:
You see, the man in question was selling some hand gloves with a small led light at each fingertips, lights that turn on whenever you shake your hands. It's kind of like those Cyalume chemlight sticks only that they light when you shake them, adding a little flair to the dancing scene where they are generally worn.
So far it seems like a super-small market, wouldn’t you agree?
But here’s the crazy part,
When the investors asked him about his sales’ numbers, jaws collectively dropped as he started to reveal the lofty gross profits his company was already making.
And in the process he began to confess the main reason why he was there standing before them, which is not precisely selling equity for cash, but rather looking for a strategic partner who can open more doors.
So the question immediately becomes:
How could a simple product destined to a small niche overshadow all its competition and successfully seize the lion mega-share of the limited glove market?
The Secret Recipe for Success
You see, Brian’s company has a secret weapon that makes them stands out from the rest.
They are the only ones that organize and host all sorts of international Gloving championships and tournaments all over the world.
Not only they organize those competitions, but they came up with the game itself in the first place.
They targeted their audience using two of the most important aspects of human psychology to their advantage, creating a great user experience, and forming a vibrant community around their product.
The genius part is that they built a culture around their product and as a consequence they set themselves apart from all competition.
Fact of the matter is that creating a culture around a product has been going on for a long time, and there are several ways it can be achieved.
Some companies, create a culture that is unique to them, and some adopt one that is already thriving.
Either that or join a counter-culture movement that is at its very beginning stages.
For instance, back in the 1980’s Ben & Jerry associated themselves with the anti-war movement as the brand became identified with the ideas of peace, love and harmony.
Much like that era, a counter-culture movement is brewing right now where people are getting tired of gate-keepers and censorship.
In that sense steemit is strategically positioned when that trend hits the bell curve.
Talking about creating a culture around a brand, mention apart deserves Star Wars.
Billionaire filmmaker George Lucas once said “All The Money Is In The Action Figures”
That moment when the tools you created to build a culture around your product bring you more returns than the product itself.
Star Wars is without any doubt one of the best examples there is to the massive success that comes by creating a culture around your brand.
That’s the reason why producers send actors to Comic Cons where they interact with all kinds of cosplaying fans in order to create and solidify a community around the things that they love.
The Things That Set Steem Apart
Steem, has a lot of differentiating aspects from the rest of crypto-currencies, in fact some of them could be real game changers.
For instance, the blogging, writing, painting elements open the door to a much wider audience than your regular crypto-currency that is formed by mostly tech savvy people and with probably a much lower girl-to-guy ratio.
For investors, this could be an extremely attractive aspect when mass-adoption hits the blockchain sphere.
It is obvious that the potential of adoption that steem has could create a significant advantage due to the inclusive aspect that most of the competition still lacks.
And by the way, this is before the video feature is live, which is another key feature that can open the market to tons of video creators, their audiences and maybe be even their sub-cultures.
Especially now that video is becoming more important than ever.
Just imagine that moment when each of these creators start bringing a few of their followers here, it’ll then be only a matter of time until we hit the snowball effect.
But before that happens, we can already start by creating sub-cultures and cheerful communities between steemians who share the same interests.
What do you think?
Personally, I cannot wait for Communities.
Happy weekend dear steemians!