
Three ways you can develop a Ron Paul-type movement in your own company - Flemlord
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2008/8/12/what-ron-paul-knows-that-your-company-doesnt.html
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tptacek
There is a whole entire book about this concept, and it was written in 1971,
so you won't have to endure Ron Paul to learn the ideas in it. It's "Rules for
Radicals" by Saul Alinsky. Alinsky is a famous leftist, but he was also a
South Side community organizer in Chicago, 15 years before Obama was.

The book is unabashedly leftist in ways that are almost quaint, but it's also
front-to-back pragmatic and filled with advice. It's my favorite marketing
book ever.

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mindslight
This article was obviously written by someone who saw the support for the Paul
campaign, but didn't understand the message and wrote it off as a transient
meme. (While concluding that the enthusiasm could be bottled and marketed)

In reality, it's about having integrity and being principled in your words and
actions over time, regardless of who is listening. Ron Paul has it. Dennis
Kucinich has it. Mcbama, Occain, and Barr don't have it.

In technology, these qualities translate into openness and transparency.
Allmydata has it. Wuala does not. Openmoko kind of has it. The iPhone doesn't.
Openmoko is certainly clunky (probably how many describe Ron Paul), but so was
Linux in the 1.2.13 days.

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hooande
My experiences on digg make me cringe at upvoting anything that says "Ron
Paul", but this really isn't bad.

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andreyf
I think the Ron Paul movement can be explained simpler than that. There are
two subconscious factors:

0\. People want to complain about the status quo (to feel smart) 1\. People
want to support the esoteric underdog (to feel non-mainstream)

Simply, supporting a Republican who is against the war and for drug
legalization is totally hip and unexpected.

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dominik
I agree with this comment on that article: "when a man of true integrity comes
along, he doesn't need to motivate people."

How can a start up have true integrity? Easy to say, hard to do: Make
something people want -- that they really want to use. And never forget that
you're a company of people, not people of a company.

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dmix
Only 3 points? I was hoping for a little more content. But Ron Pauls campaign
was inspiring and relevant to underdog start-up founders.

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zby
Is that really a noble goal to change people from rational thinkers to
'belivers'.

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DanielBMarkham
First article with "Ron Paul" in the title that I've upvoted.

Iteresting question. I know I'd be crazy happy if I had a few Paulites as
customers.

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SwellJoe
One of our heaviest users and occasional buyer scolded me for supporting Ron
Paul on my personal blog. pg also couldn't resist a couple of jabs on primary
day when I wore my Ron Paul shirt to a YC event that evening.

I find it amusing that people think Ron Paul supporters are mindless
automatons who'll buy anything their cult-leader is selling. Your comment
seems reflective of that belief. I'll just point out that herding libertarians
is not an easy task, and the coalition that is the Ron Paul revolution is
already mostly fallen apart. I wish it would stick around...but libertarians
just aren't very strong on the collective effort front. It was a pretty
fragile coalition to start with...many of Ron Paul's supporters had one or
more serious concerns about his positions (some touchy subjects: abortion,
immigration, gold standard, church/state separation).

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DanielBMarkham
I misspoke.

I would love to have people as excited about my products as the Ron Paulians
(Paulites? Paulonians?) were about Ron Paul.

I don't think it's an easy thing. Heck -- I think it is downright impossible.

Sure would be great to have that kind of excited customer base though.

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SwellJoe
I agree. 26 million dollars raised by a far outside the mainstream candidate
is pretty heady stuff. No big names, no PAC support, and no Republican Party
support. So, yes, we all definitely want that kind of passionate user. In
fact, I think Apple and Ron Paul have a lot in common, with regard to their
"customers". Both pay more (Paul supporters tend to be far less wealthy than
Clinton or McCain supporters, so $500 is a lot more money relatively
speaking), and get less (we all knew the odds of electing Paul were
practically nil, and we certainly knew we weren't going to get any political
favors from him if he did get elected), but they're still generally more
excited than customers of other "products".

Guy Kawasaki's best (IMHO) writings cover this very topic. He's not the first,
and he's not the last, as Seth Godin treads the same ground, but I found
_Selling the Dream_ and _Rules for Revolutionaries_ at least as good as _Art
of the Start_ (which is also pretty damned good). It's mostly motivation,
rather than anything particularly visionary, but it's the motivation that an
introverted nerd like me needs to really go the extra mile on outward facing
work.

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dpatru
from <http://www.paulgraham.com/mit.html>:

> You know from an early age that you'll have some sort of job, because
> everyone asks what you're going to "be" when you grow up. What they don't
> tell you is that as a kid you're sitting on the shoulders of someone else
> who's treading water, and that starting working means you get thrown into
> the water on your own, and have to start treading water yourself or sink.
> "Being" something is incidental; the immediate problem is not to drown.

> The relationship between work and money tends to dawn on you only gradually.
> At least it did for me. One's first thought tends to be simply "This sucks.
> I'm in debt. Plus I have to get up on monday and go to work." Gradually you
> realize that these two things are as tightly connected as only a market can
> make them.

> So the most important advantage 24 year old founders have over 20 year old
> founders is that they know what they're trying to avoid. To the average
> undergrad the idea of getting rich translates into buying Ferraris, or being
> admired. To someone who has learned from experience about the relationship
> between money and work, it translates to something way more important: it
> means you get to opt out of the brutal equation that governs the lives of
> 99.9% of people. Getting rich means you can stop treading water.

Paul Graham is popular because he points out that if you go to work for
someone else, you're likely to have a decent lifestyle, but unlikely to ever
be able to save enough money to be able to stop working and still live
decently, because the principal beneficiary of your hard work and ingenuity
will be your employer. Paul recommends that you start your own high-tech
company and thereby drastically increase your chances to be free. This message
is attractive to smart young men who value freedom.

Ron Paul is popular because he points out that if you go to work in the United
States, you're likely to have a decent lifestyle, but unlikely to ever be able
to save enough money to be able to stop working and still live decently,
because the principal beneficiary of your hard work and ingenuity will be your
government. Government will take an increasingly large percentage of your
income as you earn more and it will devalue the money you do manage to save.
Furthermore it will tempt you to borrow money in order to make you indebted.
All of three of these methods (income tax, inflation, and artificial easy
credit) are designed to encourage you to work steadily for the government for
life. Paul recommends that you fire your existing politician and elect someone
who will end the income tax, inflation, and the federal reserve and thereby
drastically increase your chances to be free. This message is attractive to
smart young men who value freedom but also to a lot of other people who can't
realistically found their own high-tech startup but still want to be free.

