Success Manifesto

This blog entry describes several of the many copy-cats that were launched after Million Dollar Homepage's initial publicity blitz. The key is that, as far as I can tell, none of these copy-cats have reached anything near the hundreds of thousands of dollars generated by the original -- even though they are functionally identical, and, for the most part, cheaper.

There is probably an important insight at play here. What made the original site click with so many people? It's clear that there is a strong hook lurking behind the scenes. The idea could be summarized in one line: "a poor student sells pixels to pay his way through college." When you hear this hook, you are compelled to check out the web site. When you check out the web site, the idea is so simple, so bold, so novel, that something "clicks" in your mind. This produces a pleasurable effect. This effect fuels the success of the idea.

I've long been interested in this "click." I've studied it mainly from the context of book writing, where I refer to it as the "self-help effect." It comes from the observation that a good self-help book offers a premise that is:

1) Simple;
2) Bold (alternatively, provocative);
3) Novel ("i never thought of that...");
4) Inescapably logical.

When we encounter a premise that meets these four criteria, we experience a flush of pleasure (which must source from something biological in our brain's construction), and this pleasure induces us to buy. The term "self help" is probably much too restrictive even in this context, as this style of premise occurs all over the book world. Such as in business (How to Become Ceo proposed that simple to follow, but stringent micro rules about daily behavior will lead to macro-level success in business) and in fiction (Jurassic Park proposed that it is scientifically plausabile that dinosaurs could be brought back to life).

Anyway, I wonder if the self-help effect is at the core of One Day Ideas like the Million Dollar Homepage? It's copy-cats failed, perhaps, because the novelty aspect was gone. And once you lose one of the key aspects of the effect (novelty, simplicity, boldness, logic) it fails to produce the required pleasure.

Following this thought to its conclusion would imply that brainstorming these ideas should occur with these four properties always in mind. How do we test this theory? First, we need to observe more One Day Ideas. We can see how many boast these four properties. If many do, then we can develop an idea use the "self-help" effect as the primiary guide; then see how well it works.