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Purple Cow
Seth Godin
The TL;DR
In a world of infinite brown cows, only a purple cow gets noticed. Godin's manifesto is that safe is risky, and average products marketed to everyone yield average returns at best. The answer is to build something remarkable — literally worth making a remark about — for a specific tribe of early adopters who will spread it for you. Mass marketing to the masses is dead. Your "sneezers" — passionate early users who tell others — are your real distribution channel. Don't try to make a product for everyone; make it for someone so specific that they can't help but talk about it.
Core ideas
- 1Remarkable = worth making a remark about.
- 2Mass marketing is dead. Target the early adopters who tell others.
- 3Safe is risky. Average products yield average returns.
- 4Build for sneezers — they are your distribution.
- 5Don't try to make a product for everyone. Make it for someone.
Key quotes
"In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is failing."
"The opposite of remarkable is very good."
"If it's worth doing, it's worth doing remarkably."
Apply it this week
- →Name the single 'remark' your product should provoke.
- →Identify your sneezers and design distribution around them.
- →Kill the boring feature that just makes you 'comparable'.
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