Patio11 says Hello Ladies

http://akshat.posterous.com/patio11-says-hello-ladies

by akshat • 15 years ago

699 114 15 years ago

akshat.posterous.com

akshat• 15 years ago

Sorry for the karma bait title :)

mryan• 15 years ago

From the title, I was half-expecting a link to patio11's profile on some dating site.

Great video, thanks for posting.

nandemo• 15 years ago

The title is very appropriate. The talk is awesome too.

DeusExMachina• 15 years ago

I think that here on HN any title with the word "Patio11" in it can be considered karma bait ;)

csavage• 15 years ago

This is a man who understands why people buy stuff. Awesome to see him talk.

mistermann• 15 years ago

Doesn't work on iPhone?

ct• 15 years ago

At the end of the video Patrick mentions his website has some example businesses for women. Anyone have the link to that page?

ja27• 15 years ago

His blog: http://www.kalzumeus.com/start-here-if-youre-new/

ugh• 15 years ago

It’s the last slide and you should click the fullscreen button to be able to read the text: http://www.slideshare.net/patio11/software-for-underserved-m...

patio117• 15 years ago

Here you go:

http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/blog-images/hn/selling-t...

swah• 15 years ago

This was great, but he seemed a little nervous, although his text was perfect.

chime• 15 years ago

If you've seen his older videos and interviews you can see how far he's come along. Few more presentations and he'll be a pro.

jarin• 15 years ago

Sometimes you can't help it.

Even if you're super prepared and you know your material is good, if you don't give presentations on a regular basis your reptilian brain just sits there screaming THEY ARE GOING TO KILL YOU to your autonomic nervous system. It happens to me almost every time I give a presentation (about twice a year), even though I really enjoy giving presentations and I am completely not nervous at all consciously.

mdda2• 15 years ago

I'm far from being a presentation pro, but I've talked myself out of getting nervous - just by reasoning it through like going on a flight.

When you're in an audience, do you want to kill a speaker? I know that when I'm in an audience, I (a) don't care at all; (b) switch off if the speaker is bad; (c) actually want to hear the information being giving them (and don't mind if the speaker is bad - and probably rooting for them if they are).

patio117• 15 years ago

So I had this talk down cold when I arrived in Boston and then learned I had misunderstood the rules for talks. I thought I had 7.5 minutes to go through 15 slides with a clicker. 48 hours prior to doing this talk I learned I had 30 seconds per slide and then the slide would autoadvance.

This totally fubared my joke timing, so I had spent the entire night prior to this speech practicing, going so far as to do so over lunch in my hotel room, to the amusement of the cleaning lady who also needed the room. I didn't stop being terrified out of my freaking mind until "swan dive", which was the moment that I knew I had the crowd.

mbesto• 15 years ago

Message still delivered. No worries!

systemtrigger2• 15 years ago

Autoadvance is inhumane. Speakers should not be expected to have their timing down so well that every slide transitions smoothly. The presenter will inevitably be a couple of seconds off on every slide.

I am impressed how well you pulled it off. It is hard enough to write, memorize and deliver a 7.5 minute speech. Then to add a sadistic constraint like autoadvancing slides, that raises the bar. But you nailed it. Hats off.

chad_oliver• 15 years ago

I noticed there was one particular slide that appeared only a fraction of a second after to gestured for it to appear (It looked like a human operator was watching you and advanced the slide when you indicated). That's some incredible timing!

chopsueyar• 15 years ago

Patio11, good speech and funny, too. Awesome job, man!

bearwithclaws• 15 years ago

Very impressive, Patrick! Love the energy and humor.

Just wondering, how many times you practice it? (I'm guessing at least 5 times)

kroger• 15 years ago

"All of the Lightning Talks were delivered by non-professional speakers. They followed a murderously difficult format: you get 15 slides which get auto-advanced every thirty seconds, and that’s it. You might think that means you can get away with slapping together something in an hour: oh no. In discussions with my fellow lightning talkers, we agreed that there has been something of a “lightning talk arms race”: the two talks I was most impressed by took over 24 hours to prepare, and mine took at least twelve solid hours over two months, with probably half of that being rehearsal until I could literally count out thirty seconds with a prepared spiel delivered in a voice other than my own."

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/10/15/lessons-learned-at-busin...

TillE• 15 years ago

Ever learned a musical piece that's more than just a few chords? The process, at least for me, is similar. You practice practice practice until you've got it perfectly memorized.

I couldn't give you a specific number, but whenever I've given a ~5 minute talk, I'm sure I ran through it at least a couple dozen times. Even if you have every single word written down and perfect, there are all kinds of details (timing, tone, etc) to be worked out -- and in reality, I do a lot of minor editing as I practice. That effort is the difference between a dull talk with a lot of um-ing and uh-ing, and an engaging one that the audience might remember.

chapel• 15 years ago

Thanks for posting this. I really enjoyed the presentation and have a newfound respect for patio11. Not that I didn't enjoy listening to him on the Techzing Podcast.

aw3c2• 15 years ago

Non-blogspam link: http://businessofsoftware.blip.tv/file/4933754/

Alternatively a direct link to the 70MB M4V (H264 & AAC) source (so you can avoid Flash, even though Blip.tv has HTML5 I think): http://blip.tv/file/get/Businessofsoftware-PatrickMcKenzieMa...

It's a video called "Patrick McKenzie. Marketing to minorities".

Title of the talk was "Software for underserved markets", he talks about women. It's quite short (<10 minutes) and full with wit and energy. Great fun to watch.

bioh42_2• 15 years ago

This Patrick McKenzie sounds suspiciously like patio11, the submitter of this very link...

noahc2• 15 years ago

The best line is when he says, "features.html should 404."

What he says is basically:

1. Develop a niche, and this is probably easier if you target women.

2. Sell an emotional experience, not features.

3. Tell stories because software is boring.

4. Profit!!!

dtby4• 15 years ago

2. Sell an emotional experience, not features.

Eh, that works for your market.

3. Tell stories because software is boring.

Now we're getting somewhere, this is universally applicable.

MPSimmons• 15 years ago

I think the underserved market is pretty much non-geeks. I don't really think non-geeks like features as much as they like being able to do things.

tptacek5• 15 years ago

Bzzzt. You are having a common nerd/guy adverse reaction to the word "emotional", but as someone who has sold software and services to huge companies staffed with gun-totin' Ron Swansons for 15 years, let me assure you, everyone is receptive to emotions. They're just different emotions†.

Watch Patrick's talk. Particularly the Google slide.

† "Fear" is one my industry has used to great effect; "egotism" is another one.

bane2• 15 years ago

Sounds basically like the Apple method (sans the explicit focus on Women)

pbhjpbhj4• 15 years ago

>'The best line is when he says, "features.html should 404."'

Redirect 301 /features.html http://example.com/benefits

Surely ...?

Mz4• 15 years ago

2. Sell an emotional experience, not features.

Something I learned in the course of raising and homeschooling a couple of special needs kids:

Emotion is a form of memory. People who lack much in the way of affect are terrible at making snap decisions. They lack a "gut feeling" to go on. That "gut feeling" is a shorthand way for the brain/body to store info and make decisions quickly. I have one son that is very emotional and capable of making snap decisions. I have one son who has little affect and can't make snap decisions. So I think using "emotional appeal" is a form of shorthand to communicate value to the audience. I don't think I can explain it better than that, but I really think it doesn't deserve the bad rap it gets. Emotional appeal is not some sort of illogical, shallow, silly means to make a decision. It is an alternate means, but not necessarily any less information-dense than scads and scads of logical analysis. In fact, it is probably more information dense (a la "a picture's worth a thousand words" -- "a gut feeling is worth hours and hours of study and analysis") and that is likely why it contains power to sell so much more effectively.

Peace.

Edit: Utterly baffled by the downvote. No one needs to upvote me, but some thoughts as to what the issue is would be appreciated. Thanks.

philwelch2• 15 years ago

I didn't downvote you, but I am going to thoughtfully disagree.

Emotional heuristics aren't cognitively worthless, and they're not even that bad, but they definitely have their own biases that you need to adjust for. Our emotional intuitions are largely shaped more by evolution than by our own values and preferences. If emotions were great cognitive tools, we wouldn't need to discover rationality.

edanm• 15 years ago

"Emotional appeal is not some sort of illogical, shallow, silly means to make a decision. It is an alternate means, but not necessarily any less information-dense than scads and scads of logical analysis."

I'd actually go even farther than that. I would say that many times, people make decisions based on emotion (and "gut feelings"), but justify the decisions to themselves and others with logical analysis.

In other words, most decisions are emotional and not logical, however much people disagree.

Easy way to see the truth of this in many situations - lots of times, people make up their minds, and there is literally nothing you can say or do that will change it. This would not be true if their decision was a rational one (something you think, but which is unfalsifiable, is a belief and not a rational decision).

revorad2• 15 years ago

"Software is just the monetisation engine for the emotion business."

That makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.

singular• 15 years ago

Brilliant talk - but for some reason I always envisioned patio11 as being quite considerably older...!

keyle• 15 years ago

This was brilliant. To me the best part was about bringing the emotional connection to customers right from the home page. Sell them the success they're subconsciously seeking.

follower2• 15 years ago

Wow, really nicely done. Sure, some nerves and timing issues but really impressive outside that, particularly as an non-natural public speaker.

Of course, the true measure of public speaking is how many people act on the message. :) Would be interested to know what feedback patio11 has received on that front.

Are the slides available somewhere? Couldn't find them on his site.

patio117• 15 years ago

particularly as an non-natural public speaker.

My favorite comment after the speech: "Honestly, when you got up on stage, I thought 'Oh cripes, an engineer with no social skills.' Little did I know it was all part of the act!"

Hah, the joke is on you, sucker :)

(Joking aside: this is the best speech I've given in my life by a factor of "lots" judging by audience reaction, but I did competitive public speaking for most of a decade. It isn't totally anomalous that I'd be decent at it.)

pbhjpbhj4• 15 years ago

[Please approach in a light tone]

I found you engaging and fresh in your approach (but I don't see that many presentations so what do I know) but to be uber-critical you spoke a bit too quickly at times. Usually this is an indication of nervousness but you appear to suggest (above) you have so much experience that this wouldn't be a problem.

Incidentally I suck at public speaking and tend to make nervous quips and self-deprecate (which tends to make one look worse) like you did with your "10 second [...] shoulda practised [...]" interlude. Did I mention that I'm a bit too heavy on the negative critique usually too ...

Couple of points/queries:

Is the colour of the guys you're selling software to relevant? You specify that they're white guys but I wasn't sure if this is a specific comment on demographics of people who buy software or if it was something else?

Second, knowing when a battle was doesn't make you intelligent though it might make you knowledgeable or nerdy. That aside Google don't appear to sell themselves on the issue of their customers presenting themselves as knowledgeable. Surely the benefit they sell most is simply "not wasting time looking for stuff" (Bing do the same, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLV_MTvshGg).

davidw2• 15 years ago

Interesting and very timely, I think a significant portion of the audience for http://LiberWriter.com will turn out to be women.

So... what kind of easy to create image can I put up to show how things work in a more 'human' way? I like the spareness of the design and I'm not paying for a designer until I start making steady money so "go pay a design guy a lot of money" is not a good answer.

revorad2• 15 years ago

A picture of Amanda Hocking with a quote (with her permission of course).

Edit: or a clip like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...

mise• 15 years ago

Timely, too, since they are maximizing exposure for registration for this year's conference. Clever!

patio117• 15 years ago

Get a $70 template from WooThemes (or any of numerous cheaper options) to make it look professional, then find a stock image of e.g. a woman sipping coffee at Starbucks and do one of those hand-drawn arrow things saying "She'll be a published author by the end of the latte."

Alternatively, a youngish mother playing with her child. Again, hand-drawn callout: "My mom is a published author."

marklittlewood6• 15 years ago

Cool. A little birdie tells me that Adii Rockstar, founder of Woothemes will be coming from South Africa to talk at Business of Software this year.

http://businessofsoftware.org/

equark• 15 years ago

Perhaps you should be selling the dream of becoming a published writer rather than just being "the easiest way to write for the Kindle."

nhebb2• 15 years ago

That was a great speech. After ruminating a bit, I'm still left with the sad thought that I have no clue how to put this information to use. I just went through my last 100 orders and 29 were women, so there's room for improvement. I just Googled a few variations of "how women buy on the internet", which resulted in a bunch of sites for little blue pills and Russian brides, I didn't find any useful studies. It would be a good reading topic if anyone knows a source.

mayukh• 15 years ago

Why don't you ask your female customers? Ask them how they found you? why they bought? what features of the product they like the best? ...

mdda2• 15 years ago

> Features...

Patio11 would probably suggest putting a question about benefits and experiences during usage in there too.

nhebb2• 15 years ago

I actually have asked customers - both men and women, but the main issue is that only a small percentage ever contact me for pre-sales or support inquires (which is nice in its own way), It never hurts to read academic or professional studies with a broader scope, though.

minouye2• 15 years ago

Read "Why She Buys" by Bridget Brennan. It is probably one of the most enlightening marketing/consumer psych. books I have ever read. I seriously cannot recommend it highly enough. Also, it's not just about the female consumer--there's discussion about the male consumer psychology to put things into context.

http://www.amazon.com/Why-She-Buys-Strategy-Consumers/dp/030...

patricklynch2• 15 years ago

Great book. If you like that (or really, even if you don't), I'd also recommend "Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior" by Geoffrey Miller.

It goes into the more general evolutionary psychology behind why anyone buys anything. I particularly enjoyed his early anecdote about what early humans would think if you tried to explain to them our concepts of 'money' and 'shopping'.

http://www.amazon.com/Spent-Sex-Evolution-Consumer-Behavior/...

*Caveat: I haven't read many other books about consumer behavior, so I can't say how good this is relatively speaking.

dutchrapley• 15 years ago

This is great. Goes along with Zed Shaw's philosophy on the selling and purchasing of enterprise software - steaks and strippers. Features are boring, steaks and strippers aren't.

http://vimeo.com/2723800 (17:53)

patio117• 15 years ago

Posted with slides on my blog.

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/26/software-for-underserved...

I had been waiting for the video to come out -- they usually use them to promote the Business of Software conference. So, let me make my one plug: go to the Business of Software conference. It was one of the highlights of my professional career, and I got advice and inspiration that directly helped get AR launched the following month. This talk barely gets in the ballpark of quality of some of the presentations -- and the real reason to go isn't the presentations, but to meet people who doing great things in software. (More than once I found myself asking "Who the heck let me sit at this table?! This guy bootstrapped a business which sells nuclear power plant control software and now has N employees and Y million revenue. I make bingo cards for a living!")

Thanks for the praise by the way.

davidw2• 15 years ago

How much advice from the nuclear plant guy is relevant for bingo cards? Honest question, I can see "surprisingly more than you'd think" to "well, not much, really" being in the range of possible answers.

Sounds like a fun conference, but I'm cheap: $2000+ plus travel plus hotel, plus lost time is a lot of money. Conferences always seem like a much better deal if you get invited as a speaker. You get a super-power-bonus for your own networking, because people recognize you from you talk, you get a speaker badge, and so on, and plus, you don't have to pay so much (or anything if it goes well). I pretty much stopped going to conferences where I'm not speaking.

tptacek5• 15 years ago

(In agreeing I'll add) I'm stingier with my time than $2000; the thing making me hesitate on the next one is that I wonder how much of Patrick's endorsement is based on him getting to sit at the cool kid's table in the evening and talk directly with the other speakers. Patrick, did you learn much from talking directly to attendees? Had you not been speaking, would you have learned as much from (say) Peldi?

marklittlewood6• 15 years ago

The good thing about Business of Software is you get to sit at the table with the cool kids the whole time. The capacity for the event is 380 people in total. That is a small conference by any standards.

hammock• 15 years ago

I think it finally clicked what people mean when they say "don't build your presentation around powerpoint"- your presentation style is great. Also, clever story about the teacher/classroom getting written up but not the software.

neutronicus• 15 years ago

Do you remember the name of the nuclear power plant control software?

HelloBeautiful• 15 years ago

Hmm, I've worked on NPP control software for a guy, that bootstrapped the company. The software was absolutely nasty - copy/paste and what not. And the bootstrapper got the business of his first couple NPPs because of family connections ...

So I'd prefer to sit next to you, Patrick ;-)

mkramlich• 15 years ago

the NPP, was it in Fukushima by any chance?

shadowpwner• 15 years ago

Random, but is the intro from the "Stuff You Should Know" podcast?

count• 15 years ago

It's from the Old Spice commercials.

jasonlotito• 15 years ago

Such a simple talk, such simple advice, but I learned so much. So much is obvious upon reflection, but great advice usually is. Awesome job.

jdp23• 15 years ago

I think of it as a two-dimensional market segmentation perspective: gender on one dimension, race on another. In a lot of segments, almost everybody is fighting it out in the "white guy" quadrant or at least the "guy" half. Take the Q&A space, for example: Quora is 80-90% guys, and so is StackOverflow. So there's room for competitors targeting the "niches" that actually make up most of the population. And there are similar dynamics in most market segments ...

marklittlewood6• 15 years ago

If you are thinking of going to Business of Software this year, the first Early Bird discount finishes midnight PST on Sunday night. Over 150 places of 380 total gone already.

http://businessofsoftware.org/

edw519• 15 years ago

Patrick, I'm really glad to see you use the reference from the Atlantic article in your presentation. It was one of the most memorable "testimonials without even being a testimonial" I've ever read about the use software for a higher purpose:

Next, Mr. Taylor announces it’s time for Multiplication Bingo. As Mr. Taylor reads off a problem (“20 divided by 5”), the kids scour their boards, chips in hand, looking for 4’s. One girl is literally shaking with excitement. Another has her hands clasped in a prayer position. I find myself wanting to play. You know you’re in a good classroom if you have to stop yourself from raising your hand.

My reaction, which hasn't changed, from 11 months ago:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1267630

The full article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/01/what-makes...

patio117• 15 years ago

I wrote that into the slide primarily because you had seemed so affected by it. Thanks for calling it out for me.

mryall• 15 years ago

That is a great article, even aside from the anecdote about the bingo cards. Analysing what makes a good teacher is so important yet so difficult in reality because of the influence of teachers’ unions. There’s also is a huge reluctance to use any information that is discovered to improve our education systems.

zrog• 15 years ago

Amazingly, it's also highly relevant to entrepreneurs. The article lists six characteristics of great teachers:

1. great teachers tended to set big goals for their students

2. perpetually looking for ways to improve their effectiveness

3. avidly recruited students and their families into the process

4. maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning

5. planned exhaustively and purposefully by working backward from the desired outcome

6. worked relentlessly, refusing to surrender

Translating these to the world of entrepreneurs we can say:

1. set big goals for yourself

2. perpetually look or ways to improve your effectiveness

3. avidly recruit workers and partners into the process

4. maintain focus, ensuring that everything you do contributes to your goals

5. plan exhaustively and purposefully by working backward from the desired outcome

6. work relentlessly, do not surrender

jenndox• 15 years ago

Thanks for explicitly calling out that it isn't that people sell poorly to women, but that we sell poorly to everyone. It is a very useful turn to take when thinking about market segmentation. Great talk!

bane2• 15 years ago

Great talk! Funny, engaging, involved the audience, full of great content.

I certainly learned something, already rethinking a few parts of our messaging.

marcamillion• 15 years ago

I have been highly anticipating this, and it's better than I thought it would be. A bit awkward at times, but that's what makes it so endearing.

We can see how genuine he is.

Good job Patrick!

marklittlewood6• 15 years ago

It is difficult to understate how good Patrick was.

BoS has some of the best speakers in the business. Some you will have heard of - Seth Godin, Joel Spolsky, Geoffrey Moore - some you won't have heard from even if you have heard of them - Peldi at Balsamiq for example. http://businessofsoftware.org/prevyear.aspx

Patrick only had 7 minutes 30 seconds but he rocked the house. He will be back this year we hope.

dhimes• 15 years ago

I assume

  s/understate/overstate/

marklittlewood6• 15 years ago

Ha! Indeed. I had originally written, 'couldn't overstate'. Then I wrote something else. Then a small child appeared and distracted me. Then I just posted nonsense. I blame the minors.

What I meant was Patrick was totally awesome and the video doesn't do his talk proper justice.

pbhjpbhj4• 15 years ago

I hate hero shots, do we have to have hero shots?

Vivtek• 15 years ago

Fantastic presentation!

dawgr• 15 years ago

Expect a surge in period tracker web apps.

jwwest• 15 years ago

This was an awesome presentation, quick, funny, to the point.

However, it brought up some interesting questions for me. How many people can truly create software for the sole purpose of selling it? Unless he really likes Bingo cards, he worked on this software not out of love but love for money.

This isn't a bash, I'm insanely curious actually. The more I think about it, the more I know that I cannot create software for women because I have absolutely no interests that would coincide with an underserved market. Maybe I'm just not creative enough? And honestly, for me to create an awesome product, I'd have to be invested in it somehow.

patio117• 15 years ago

I don't hate money, but if I wanted it, there would be more straightforward ways of getting it than BCC.

I certainly don't love bingo. I do really care about teaching and helping teachers. I also love running a business, both the actual mechanics of doing it and what it does for my life.

You almost certainly have interests which coincide with an underserved market, since you're a human and not a walking cliche of asocial geeky engineer who likes D&D and Firefly.

kellysutton• 15 years ago

Kind of along the lines of this is Spolsky's advice that he would give out at the Dev Days conference tour he does/did with Carsonified: How is your software going to get someone laid?

While a little far-fetched, it does help keep everything in perspective although it serves the young guy demographic a bit more.

electrum• 15 years ago

Did that "get someone laid" bit originate with JWZ? http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html

noonespecial• 15 years ago

I wondered at first how Patrick could squeeze success from something like Bingo card creation.

I don't anymore.

marklittlewood6• 15 years ago

If you are going to pick something up and post it on your Posterous, ignore the copyright notices, then post it on Hacker News, it would be really lovely if you could include one small link back to the event page you took it from.

http://businessofsoftware.org/

Thanks.

some1else• 15 years ago

Business of Software is the best for sharing these videos. Thanks Joel/BoS!

code_acdc• 15 years ago

Very interesting prespective

sdizdar• 15 years ago

Excellent presentation. Brilliant. I'm always told that sell process is actually selling one of these four things: fear, greed, vanity, or insecurity.

But that is easier said than done. I have no clue how to achieve that (I'm still in "sell features" mindset). I would like to hear is there are any good examples of software product or server which does that well.

Patio11 says Hello Ladies

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