Nothing’s New

Seems as though 3 business models make up 80% of all trendy, apparently noteworthy digital startups: Tinder for_____, Birchbox for_____ andAirBnB/Uber for______. These used to be called Hot Or Not, Fruit/thing Of-The-Month Club, and Classified Ads (or, in Medieval times, when the economy in Europe was not so centrally-controlled, Trade).

Actually, Facebook came from Hot Or Not, which came from Face Book, which was the book of freshman faces all freshmen got in my university, and many others. In this real paper pamphlet, we’d all rate the guys or gals in terms of hotness. You weren’t hot. You were not.

This was always a hunch, but it’s been well-confirmed, at least on Wikipedia: “Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook similarly got his start by creating a Hot or Not type site called FaceMash, where he posted photos from Harvard’s Facebook for the university’s community to rate.[6]”

So find something human beings naturally have done since we evolved from apes (or landed on earth in spaceships, sprang from God, etc.) and make it more scalable. Done. Despite all the claptrap from “growth hackers” and “thought leaders”, very few businesses are “disruptors”. Even selfies are nothing new. People are egomaniacs who want everyone else to see them a certain way, on their own terms. If your village is potentially now The World,then this is what your ego does to you. We are all celebrities in our minds and we all potentially create our own celebrity — no one does it for us unless we are lucky or hire the right people and/or use the right technology. This is the basis for what I spend a lot of time on. The rest of it is spent cleaning up cheerios and making orchestrated noise. Tinder for cleaning up my children’s messes. Cheerios or Chex Mix?