I want to share a story of how I helped win a game of lying yesterday with a little psychological trick that was inspired by the TV show The Mentalist.

A good number of folks who read this blog probably attend some kind of conference, most likely in the field of technology. There’s a phenonmenon that occurs at the end of most days of the conference.

Folks get together to play Werewolf. Also called Mafia. Which is the variant I played in highschool. Recently I was introduced to another variant: Resistance.

The basic premise of these games is that everyone is given an identity to play. Some people are “bad”; some people are “good”. Bad people are the liars of the game, and lying to all the good people about their identities. Good people have to play the game not knowing anyone’s true identity except for their own.

Yesterday I was playing with the crew behind Everyblock (You should...

wrong: build something and then figure out how much you can charge. right: choose your desired price, then figure out how to justify it.

— Amy Hoy (@amyhoy) March 5, 2012

Amy brings up a great point and motivates me to finish a post I’ve had sitting around for awhile. Most folks try and make something and then they slap a price on it. Often folks then discover some nasty things about their product. Either the market can’t bear a product at that price, or they aren’t sitting on a profitable business.

One tool in your arsenal which I rarely ever see used is to use a product’s theoretical price to frame what you need to build. So how do you come up with that theoretical price ahead of time?

If you plan on making a big part of your living from selling something online, I have a very interesting strategy for you.

The too long; didn’t read of it is this:

1. Look up the cost per click...

1: Be Narrow

Focus on the smallest possible problem you could solve that would potentially be useful. Most companies start out trying to do too many things, which makes life difficult and turns you into a me-too. Focusing on a small niche has so many advantages: With much less work, you can be the best at what you do. Small things, like a microscopic world, almost always turn out to be bigger than you think when you zoom in…

Evan Williams’ (co-founder of Twitter) 10 Rules for Startups was written in 2005 but is still such a useful guide for today’s founders.

There’s an interesting rule in there though when you consider Twitter, which was created just a few months after Ev’s post.

7: Be Greedy

…While it’s true that traffic is now again actually worth something, the give-everything-away-and-make-it-up-on-volume strategy stamps an expiration date on your company’s ass. In other...

What’s the most difficult CEO skill?

Managing your own psychology.

-Ben Horowitz

I’m a big fan of inspirational tv shows and movies. They can be the fuel you need to get through just one more of the many down days you can expect when you start a new business.

There’s plenty of lists of movies and tv shows of this ilk that you can find online. Here are a few places.

So it wouldn’t surprise you that I’m always on the hunt for more.

I’m thrilled to point out there’s an entire series that is surprisingly inspirational. Why is it so surprising? Because it’s in the strangest place. It’s on MTV.

It’s called The Buried Life. It’s 4 guys that created a pretty long bucket list. And they go out and attempt to check off an item from their list each episode. These items are crazy. And I’m sure might rub a few people the wrong way. First few episodes are things like crashing a Playboy...

My father, he always said “Lean into it”. It means the outcome doesn’t matter. What matters, is that you’re there for it. Whatever IT is. Good or bad. Kinda like right now.

Chris Pine’s character in People Like Us

I don’t think I’ve ever done that before: watch a hollywood movie trailer and rewind it to write down some quote from one of the fictional characters.

But I dug that one a lot.

Sounds like a John Wooden quote. John was an inspirational basketball coach and all around guy. Cared very deeply about process and practice, and didn’t give a shit about winning or losing outcomes. Yet he ended up winning. A lot.

In my last post I shared how my wife, Lynette, used the principle of Social Proof that Dr. Robert Cialdini explores in his book, Influence, to get a new job.

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen anyone using Social Proof before to help influence folks in the job interview process. It dawned on me that there might be a couple other great ideas right out of behavioral psychology to improve someone’s effort in getting a job.

I’ll focus on two other principles of persuasion here that came to mind: Reciprocity and Anchoring. Reciprocity is another principle Dr. Cialdini explains in his book, and Dan Ariely has often talked about Anchoring on his blog and in his book Predictably Irrational.

Reciprocity

Reciprocity is the principle that if I give you something, you’ll want to do something for me. That’s why so many salesmen like to give away free gifts. You’ll often feel persuaded to give...

My wife, Lynette, recently upped her job search game. In fact, she quit her job last week and starts a new one in about 10 days. She’s very excited and I’m insanely proud of her.

I wanted to share something she started doing with her job search that blew my mind a bit. I’ve never seen anyone do this in the dozens and dozens and dozens of resumes I’ve looked at or job candidates I’ve interviewed, but it seems so simple to do. If you are currently looking for a job or plan to, you might want to jot this down.

So a tiny bit of background.

The father of the science and psychology of persuasion is a guy named Robert Cialdini. He’s a professor out of Arizona State University and he’s written one of the most popular books on the subject of persuasion called… Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

The book describes 6 key principles of persuasion:

• Social Proof
• Reciprocity
• Commitment...

Well @mikeyk once told me that much of Instagram was coded to @FRabbits and @The_National as a soundtrack. Let that be a lesson to others!

— Ryan Vance (@ryanvance) April 9, 2012

You can find a ton more live Frightened Rabbit stuff here.

We buy a ton of stuff from Target. But it dawned on me I know more about Walmart and Sam Walton than I do about the history of Target.

Which is funny. Because I can’t stand shopping at Walmart. The experience drives me crazy. The Walmart nearest to me is dirty, the aisles are cramped in a way that shoppers can’t comfortably cross paths, and the lighting feels like I’m in Tom Hank’s office from Joe versus the Volcano. It’s a lot like this

I found some interesting bits.

Target was originally not Target. It was a company called the Dayton Dry Goods Company which had been around since about 1900 and owned a bunch of your typical department stores. It wasn’t until 1962 when Target was conceived by a guy named:

John F. Geisse

John seems like a pretty interesting innovator with these big store concepts. When he created Target he said:

We will offer high-quality merchandise at low...

My wife, Lynette, and I find ourselves with an unusual Easter this year… just hanging out at home by ourselves. So we took a quick peek to see what Google thought we should do today in the neighborhood:

4th link down is Binny’s Beverage depot. Looks like Google wants us to be getting some stuff to make cocktails.