Reblog: Minimum Viable Personality

There are two guest posts that are essentially tied for the most popular guest post ever on AVC. They are both in the top ten of all posts on AVC since I put Google Analytics on this blog at the start of 2007. They each have seen about 125,000 page views since they were published.

The first is Joel Spolsky‘s guest post on The Management Team.

The second is this post below from Fake Grimlock.

Both are great, but I felt like putting some dino magic on the blog today.

—————————————-

MINIMUM VIABLE PERSONALITY

MOST IMPORTANT STEP FOR BUILD PRODUCT IS BUILD PRODUCT.

SECOND MOST IMPORTANT IS BUILD PERSONALITY FOR PRODUCT.

NO HAVE PERSONALITY? PRODUCT BORING, NO ONE WANT.

BREADORBACON

 

PERSONALITY BETTER THAN MARKETING

WHEN CHOOSE PRODUCT, HUMANS ONLY CARE ABOUT DOES WORK, AND IS INTERESTING.

WORLD ALREADY FULL OF THINGS DO WORK. MOST BORING.

PERSONALITY = INTERESTING. INTERESTING = CARE. CARE = TALK. 

EVERYONE CARE AND TALK ABOUT PRODUCT? YOU WIN.

CAREPLUSTALKISWIN

SELL TO FRIENDS, NOT STRANGERS

PERSONALITY MAKE PRODUCT FRIEND. YOU HELP FRIEND. YOU FORGIVE WHEN FRIEND NOT PERFECT. YOU WANT FRIEND WIN.

BORING STRANGER?… YOU NOT.

PERSONALITY IS API FOR LOYALTY. NO ONE CARE WHICH BORING STRANGER IS NEXT. BUT ALWAYS WANT FRIEND NEXT. 

LOYALTYPORT

PERSONALITY MAKE MEANING

CAN PET ROCK. PET DOG BETTER. PET DOG HAVE MEANING.

BORING PRODUCT IS ROCK. NO HAVE MEANING. INTERACT WITH PERSONALITY DIFFERENT. HAVE MEANING.

INTERESTING PRODUCT THAT GIVE FRIENDS MEANING = MOST WIN OF ALL.

NOTAROCK

HOW NOT BE BORING

HAVE PERSONALITY EASY. ANSWER THREE QUESTIONS:

1. HOW YOU CHANGE CUSTOMER’S LIFE? 

2. WHAT YOU STAND FOR?

3. WHO OR WHAT YOU HATE?

NOW HAVE MISSION, VALUES, ENEMY. THAT ENOUGH FOR MINIMUM VIABLE PERSONALITY.

KEEP IN BRAIN WHEN WRITE, TALK, BLOG, TWEET. ITERATE. IMPROVE WHAT WORK. DELETE WHAT NOT. PERSONALITY GROW.

NO BE CHICKEN

CHICKEN LIVE IN CAGE. NO CAN HAVE PERSONALITY INSIDE CAGE. 

LAST STEP IS SMASH CAGE, LIGHT BARN ON FIRE.

DO THAT, YOU WIN.

CHICKENWIN

#entrepreneurship

Comments (Archived):

  1. JimHirshfield

    Classic. More Dino please.

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      OR ELSE.

  2. jason wright

    is FAKE GRIMLOCK being held incommunicado for random?

    1. vruz

      No one going to eat that chicken 🙂

      1. jason wright

        DINO CHICKEN EAT HUMANS

    2. Susan Rubinsky

      FAKE GRIMLOCK buried under books at moment.

      1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        THAT TOO.

    3. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      ME BUSY WRITE CODE FOR DAYJOB.

  3. Peter Sorgenfrei

    Brilliant – we do need more Dino

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      YES.

  4. WA

    My vote for the most popular “re-run” of a guest post ever.

    1. Anne Libby

      +1

  5. RichardF

    glad you decided to reblog this one BECAUSE AWESOME!

  6. jeffyablon

    ►Chicken yummy. Blog Yummy. Blog about chicken make head explode

  7. Allison DeFord

    Love it! Perfectly said…with an accent to boot. 🙂

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      ONLY ACCENT ME HAVE IS AWESOMETONIAN ONE.

  8. pointsnfigures

    Ben Horowitz book, Hard Things About Hard Things talks about last part. Use lead bullets not silver ones. There is no silver bullets when thinking about competitors. Have to kill them. Peter Thiel talks about it too-startup must aspire to become a monopoly.

    1. Rohan

      I loved the lead bullets story.

      1. pointsnfigures

        we have to get together for coffee. I should ride my bike up to Evanston

        1. Rohan

          YES! So sorry I’ve not followed up since our last chat. The last 3 weeks have been a bit crazy. I am on rohan at rohanrajiv.com – would love to meet!

  9. Bobur

    Big fat LOL 🙂

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      WHO YOU CALL FAT?

  10. sigmaalgebra

    Yup, I don’t keep copies of many of the pages of AVC, but I still have, and know right where it is and how to find it, and definitely have it in the TODO list for my project, that Fake Grimlock post, saved on my disk on 9/30/2011. I.e., right way and since then I’ve thought that it was worth saving. It is, and still is.On putting Grimlock’s personality into my project, I can use and welcome the help from Grimlock’s post.

  11. William Mougayar

    And the best part is that this post kicked off the Fake Grimlock publishing empire. Now there are books and posters, and they are AWESOME!!!!

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      AND NEW SUBSCRIPTION TO “HOW TO STARTUP”, LEANEST LEAN STARTUP BOOK EVER MADE.http://bit.ly/HOWTOSTARTUP

      1. William Mougayar

        Nice! For the price of a short latte….

  12. Twain Twain

    Haha, totally brilliant! “No forget loyalty port!”One of my friends sent this TED talk by Simon Sinek to me and it also really gets to the heart of user interest and loyalty:* https://www.youtube.com/wat…Summary of the video————————-WHY and the personality and values of the product is at the center. The next layer out is the How and then the least important layer is What it does.A lot of times, technical founders obsess about the functions of their system (what it does) whilst design/product founders focus on the flow of their system (how it does it — or, rather, how to move the user from one interaction to another).Every once in a blue moon, there’s a founder like Steve Jobs who understands that technology is an extension of our humanness and the system (whatever it is) has to be embodied with personality and empathy.To the extent the technology is like a family member you depend on for moral, wisdom and emotional support.

  13. Guy Lepage

    Definitely my fav post. 🙂

  14. Bryan S Arnold

    Certified Cool…

  15. FAKE GRIMLOCK

    ME, FAKEGRIMLOCK, MOST MAGICAL ONE OF ALL!

    1. Donna Brewington White

      And you’re funny.

  16. Rafi Kronzon

    VC have some money. VC must turn some money into lots money, not some money. To make lots money, VC no like boring product. Boring product only make some money. VC don’t care about some money. Interesting product need personality. Interesting product with personality usually make no money. Once in a while, interesting product with personality make much lots money. VC like much lots money.

  17. Brandon Burns

    Hey, Grimlock… is that book ever going to get shipped?

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      MOSTLY IS.

      1. Hisho10

        all the best

  18. Alberto Moyano

    COMMIT TO THE BACON. LEAVE BREAD. PIG WINS.

  19. laurie kalmanson

    #becauseawesome

  20. TaiKen

    The first five steps are relatively easy to understand but the last step is hard to grasp. Which cage? I do love that chicken who is leaving the mushroom cloud, the wrecked tractor, the burning barn, the smashed tree, and the fox’s dead body behind.

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      WHATEVER CAGE YOU IN.

  21. Guest

    Got one of these

  22. Steve Goldenberg

    PERSONALITY IS API FOR LOYALTY is one of the best things I’ve heard in ages and is so true.

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      ME, FAKEGRIMLOCK, NEVER SAY THINGS THAT NOT THAT WAY!

  23. Donna Brewington White

    If ever there was a post that deserves reblogging. A star was born.

  24. Carol Saia

    You are best teacher I ever see, but not all chickens live in cage. some are very range wild. I even see wild turkeys walking the streets in Piedmont the cage of very rich in Oakland area, but your picture is more funny then my smarty pants words.

  25. mirko_naldi

    My vote for the most popular “re-run” of a guest post ever.

  26. Brett the brat slapper

    Read this in a fake asian accent

  27. KDeast827

    books and posters

  28. LE

    Those look awesome. And tasty.That said I think you are missing some branding elements that you need in addition to the “Lancaster Foods Company”.There is no identity because the products are labeled like:”Organic Soft White””Organic Whole Wheat”.This is similar to what Whole Foods does with it’s house brand (365). They can do that because it’s a house brand. And because they are whole foods and are guaranteed shelf space.There is some bread we buy from the local bakery which is multi grain and so good we call it “Nasty Bread”. So we say “stop by Classic Cake and pickup some Nasty Bread”.Another bread we buy is Ezekiel this stuff:http://www.foodforlife.com/…We call it “Ezekiel Emanuel Bread”.While I don’t think “Ezekiel” is a great name by any means it got us to remember it (mainly because of Rahm’s brother). I wouldn’t have remembered “food for life”.Get the point?I’d be glad to help you with this btw.Also you should contact mouth.com they would sell the spreads for sure. (A Fred and Joanne investment …)

  29. sigmaalgebra

    How to read the labels on the jars of “butter”: On the image of the three jars, right, the image that is on the screen for only a few seconds before some semi-genius replaces it with another image and, thus, frustrates the readers, right click and take option “View image”. Then will get a Web page with just the image, one that won’t move, and, at least in a recent version of Firefox, can use Ctrl-+ to magnify the image enough to read the labels.Yup, sounds good until I think about what may be on the nutritional label in calories per tablespoon!

  30. LE

    Important thing is that you’ve thought about it it’s an art and this is your art for sure.

  31. LE

    Near Philly in SJ.

  32. Donna Brewington White

    Nasty bread. Ha! Love it!

  33. Donna Brewington White

    Rushing but I will be back. These look amazing! Now you just need a gluten free version of the bread. :)I wonder if you get the positive association with things that are Amish-made based on the location. (I have a thing for the Amish.)