
Golden Rules for Making Money by P. T. Barnum (1880) - eru
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/moneygetting.html
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kqr2
Here's a pdf version of the book:

<http://www.freewebs.com/maestro_mr/barnum1.pdf>

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brandnewlow
Spectacular article! Here's a bit that could use updating for our modern age:

Encouragement to advertise when you've got something good:

"In a country like this, where nearly everybody reads, and where newspapers
are issued and circulated in editions of five thousand to two hundred
thousand, it would be very unwise if this channel was not taken advantage of
to reach the public in advertising. A newspaper goes into the family, and is
read by wife and children, as well as the head of the home; hence hundreds and
thousands of people may read your advertisement, while you are attending to
your routine business. Many, perhaps, read it while you are asleep."

Is there a modern equivalent? Television? Still? Is there any one thing that
truly touches entire families today?

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dmix
With the rise of marketing it's uncommon for a company to try to reach an
entire family. Promotion is more effective when its highly targeted.

Although, TV is probably the best medium for reaching a broad audience.

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cstejerean
I'm guessing that depending on what you're trying to sell you might still want
to reach the entire family (first thing that comes to mind is cars)

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brandnewlow
Yes. For some reason I thought of "cars", too. Not sure why, but it seems like
the only consumer good that still gets passed around.

Bumper stickers?

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spolsky
"Give a boy twenty thousand dollars and put him in business, and the chances
are that he will lose every dollar of it before he is a year older."

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TweedHeads
Overheard at a VC meeting last week...

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dmix
This reminds me of the book "The Richest Man in Babylon", it has similar
parables and written in context of ancient times. Some advice is timeless.

In this book, I love how he talks about financial security as achieving
independence.

"It is this go-aheaditiveness, this determination not to let the "horrors" or
the "blues" take possession of you, so as to make you relax your energies in
the struggle for independence, which you must cultivate. "

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pg
Wow, this is surprisingly good.

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DabAsteroid
Henry Ford's book is pretty good, too. (My Life and Work. 1922.)

<http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/hnfrd10.txt>

 _"Business" in the sense of trading with the people is largely a matter of
filling the wants of the people. If you make what they need, and sell it at a
price which makes possession a help and not a hardship, then you will do
business as long as there is business to do. People buy what helps them just
as naturally as they drink water._

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cousin_it
Thanks, great book, just finished reading it at your link. Made me wonder if
it's still applicable today. Design the perfect product, then optimize the
manufacturing process till it's dirt cheap? Definitely won't work with coding.

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ars
I love the language - so many words we don't use anymore, or use differently.
Like economy for example - I quite forgot it's earlier meaning (saving). Or
lay up.

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Hexstream
Also I had never seen "industry" as an adjective.

From wikipedia: "Generally industry is diligence, assiduity, hard work."

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a-priori
One variation of this usage that has survived is "industrious".

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Eliezer
An extraordinary document. I think I have never seen such a model of brevity.

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ars
I thought they didn't know tobacco was harmful until semi-recently, but this
was written in 1880!

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rms
It seems that for a long time, people possessed an intuitive notion that
smoking was bad (it makes you cough, gives you shortness of breath, etc.) but
mostly ignored that intuition.

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rkowalick
If you read any old literature, even as far back as the 1800's, you get this
feeling. No one ever outright says "this will kill you," but it was certainly
regarded as a poor health choice.

The one thing that bugs me about this was, as a kid in a health class, I was
shown a video of a little girl and her grandma. The girl asked the grandma
"Why do you smoke grandma?" The old lady responded "Because when I was your
age, nobody knew that smoking was bad for you."

The bullcrap we were fed as kids is incredible.

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qwph
Going back as far as 1604, King James I of England had the following to say
about smoking:

 _A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the
braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof,
neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomlesse._

<http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/james1.html>

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kingkongrevenge
James was also an evil fascist. Hitler hated smoking. See the pattern?

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eru
"Scholars agree that, in addition to being a teetotaler and a non-smoker,
Adolf Hitler practiced some form of vegetarianism."
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_of_Adolf_Hitler>)

Just for historical curiousity. I do not want to start a debate about the
Nazis.

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jmtame
Not much has changed since 1880 =]

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cellis
Like this nugget:

 _A man may go on "change" and make fifty or one hundred thousand dollars in
speculating in stocks, at a single operation. But if he has simple boldness
without caution, it is mere chance, and what he gains to-day he will lose to-
morrow._

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mleonhard
"There is no greater mistake than when a young man believes he will succeed
with borrowed money."

Isn't VC money essentially borrowed money?

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Allocator2008
No. If VC money is for ownership of the startup, then no. If I lend somebody
money and they promise to pay it back over N years with X interest, that is a
loan. If I give somebody money in exchange for a certain number shares, that
is a purchase. I am purchasing ownership in the startup. One does not "pay
back" one's investors. Rather one generates a profit for one's investors.

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railsjedi
Rules #10 and #11 seems especially applicable to my own situation, when
jumping from startup idea to startup idea.

130 year old advice seems more powerful for some reason. Hopefully reading it
here is the first step to resolving it.

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DLWormwood
Some time ago, I got into a discussion with my parents and sibling about role
models of past generations. My sister and I were surprised by them offering up
P. T. Barnum as a positive role model, and we got into an argument with them,
since we believed (like many our age) that he was a well known charlatan and
hoaxer. This article of his (as well as an article that Wired magazine did
some time back) kind of makes me wonder what happened to his reputation over
the years to make our misconceptions about him possible.

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netcan
_Money is in some respects like fire; it is a very excellent servant but a
terrible master. When you have it mastering you; when interest is constantly
piling up against you, it will keep you down in the worst kind of slavery. But
let money work for you, and you have the most devoted servant in the world. It
is no "eye-servant." There is nothing animate or inanimate that will work so
faithfully as money when placed at interest, well secured. It works night and
day, and in wet or dry weather._

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mattmaroon
Tell that to the people whose money markets just returned a loss :)

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seiji
> If you are losing money, be specially cautious and not tell of it, or you
> will lose your reputation.

Hasn't that caused a lot of problems?

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ars
> you will lose your reputation.

He's talking from personal experience, he did loose a lot of reputation when a
company he invested in went bankrupt. So he's not wrong.

> Hasn't that caused a lot of problems?

It depends - if you are holding assets that belong to the customer, or have a
contract to do something for a customer then yes.

But if you have a business like his, museum, then there is no reason to say
anything - if you go under, at worst someone will be disappointed they can't
get in, but they will not loose anything.

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chmike
If the bank applied the advice "don't endorse without security" the economic
disaster we see today wouldn't have occured.

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bilbo0s
Wow, this is a good article. I thought all of the raving was about nothing,
but it is definitely worth the read.

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known
Isn't this Oxymoron?

[http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/money...](http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/moneygetting_chap20.html)

Because, Transparency Begets Trust.

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Hexstream
That's the best submission ever posted here as far as I'm concerned!

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brandnewlow
I might have to agree with you there. I'm going to hold on to this link.

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hhm
I published the same link a while ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=88544>

Anyway it's a great link so I guess it doesn't matter much.

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eru
I looked into my old bookmarks and found the link. So perhaps I even got it
from you back in the day. Thanks!

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hhm
I had time to read it again now because of your posting, so thank you!

