THE Steven Goh Talk
And yes this deserves "THE" in capital letters because it was THAT good.
When I look back at Ideas Inc, there was only one talk which was by Keith Nakamura on social media which till this day, has profoundly changed the way I think about Fashfix and social media. I think this Steven Goh talk might be another one.
So wtf did he talk about?
Going viral.
1. Find out your customers neurosis and tap on it
With facebook, its the fear of loneliness hence social validation via "likes". With his own company, Mig33, its the "status" effect and fear of being kicked off chat rooms by unfriendly strangers. Farmville? "Spam" viral which gives users incentives to invite more as well as a less talked about "theft"-viral - ie when your friends sign up, you have the opportunity to steal from their farms
2. Referrals have to be genuine with social value
Best example - watsapp! For most people, the only reason why they downloaded watsapp was because someone told them to - the best sort of referral. Things to avoid are farmville spam-referrals - they're a turn off and growth reaches a plateau after a certain time.
3. City by city meet ups
Twitter had tweet ups for its members to discuss. Pinterest and etsy had regular crafty sessions. People like connecting offline as well as online - and its a good way to create virality and a 'sound chamber' of your brand.
4. The beginning is the hardestIn a start up, getting the first few thousand users is the hardest - akin to launching a rocket from earth: 99% of the fuel is spent just to escape the earth's atmosphere! True story!!! I guess thats why start ups are a marathon of endurance rather than a sprint towards the finish line!
To end off the session, he also very thoughtfully added his two words on entrepreneurship - to not think of it as a super risky journey. At the end of the day, if it really doesn't work out - if you're any good, there'll still be a corporate job waiting for you. Hopefully though, it won't come to that!
