10 iron-clad laws that helped me build a one-of-a-kind brand.

The last one might surprise you!

It’s been a while. Let’s cut to the chase. Here is a medley of maybe useful advice that will help you, that helped me when I started Pip Decks (and also serves as a useful reminder to myself, especially point 7).

1. Build for one person. Develop your prototype to solve this one person’s problem - and do not stop until it is perfect. Seth Godin calls this the “minimum viable audience”. There are more people on this Earth than you can feasibly comprehend. I promise you there at least 100,000 other people who need what you made for that one person.

2. Be remarkable. This point is only possible if you followed point 1. A product that solves a painful and specific problem is inherently remarkable (i.e., worth remarking upon). If the rash on your skin goes away after using this special cream, you are going to tell your friends who also have the same rash.

3. Stand the fuck out, or don’t bother at all. It is a risk to try and blend in amongst what already exists. Your visual aesthetic and brand needs to be totally fucking wild and different - or you will be another cow in the field. Be a purple cow.

4. Design like you’re right, test like you’re wrong. You are only as good as your ability to test your riskiest assumptions as quickly as possible. For example, if you assume your new subscription business model is going to pathe the road to financial salvation - you better test that offer before you invest time and money setting it up. Similarly, starting out a business - you better test people will actually buy what you’re offering before you actually build it.

5. Ship it now. Fix it later. Further to point 4, your opinion only matters in so far as it brings a hypothesis into reality. Your customers (and the market) will tell you if you’re right or you’re wrong. Use arguments (not quarrels!) with your partner/team to roadtest your thinking. Do not argue for the sake of “being right” and protecting your ego.

6. Allow your mind to change. Let data guide you. But don’t be dogmatic about it either. Economic theory and irrational human behaviour don’t play nice.

7. Delegate now you coward! You will always wish you did it sooner. So do it. Learn to hire well. Only hire A-players; people that blow you away. As soon as you allow mediocrity into your team, it will rot your business from the inside forevermore.

8. Ego is the enemy. Shut up and mind your own business. A protruding nail wants to get hammered. Don’t build in public for Twitter clout. Build with your customers. Speak to your customers instead of speaking to people on podcasts. Succeed in silence. Don’t respond to that LinkedIn DM that wants to pick your brain.

9. Don’t follow gurus. Follow your curiosity. You don’t need to be ambitious or have a goal in mind. So long as you are having fun and earnestly building something that genuinely helps people - the rest will click into place if you let it. “What happens if I…” will get you very far.

10. You will die. No one will care or remember how successful or disastrous your business is, or how hard you worked, or what your MMR was, or how much money you raised. The number one deathbed regret is working too hard and not spending enough time with family and friends. So don’t blow your life away trying to escape it by working on your business. Keep going as long as you are making money and having fun. But when one of those two things stops being true - get out.

Let me know if any of these stuck out to you, or if you want me to dive into it more. I’d be happy to write a follow up.

‘til next time.

Charles Burdett.
twitter.com/chburdett