
Patio11 says Hello Ladies - akshat
http://akshat.posterous.com/patio11-says-hello-ladies
======
patio11
Posted with slides on my blog.

[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/26/software-for-
underserved...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/26/software-for-underserved-
markets/)

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.

~~~
davidw
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.

~~~
tptacek
(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?

------
aw3c2
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...](http://blip.tv/file/get/Businessofsoftware-
PatrickMcKenzieMarketingToMinorities763.m4v)

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

------
edw519
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...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/01/what-makes-a-
great-teacher/7841/)

~~~
mryall
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
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

------
noahc
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!!!

~~~
Mz
_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.

~~~
philwelch
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.

~~~
javert
(Not to be sarcastic, but cute) I didn't downvote you, but I am going to
thoughtfully disagree.

 _Our emotional intuitions are largely shaped more by evolution than by our
own values and preferences._

Well, if that were the case, people would have the same emotions about the
same things, but actually, different people have different reactions to
different things. (That's because they value different things.)

 _If emotions were great cognitive tools, we wouldn't need to discover
rationality_

Emotions are responses to values (as patio11 said, rightly, in his talk). You
need to use reason to figure out what you value. Once you do, your emotions
follow therefrom. But "what you value" is actually very complex and context-
dependent sometimes, which is why emotions are so useful to give you a snap
summary of what could otherwise be a very complex situation to analyze
thoroughly.

It's certainly the case that your emotions can be "wrong," but they just
follow the thinking you've done previously, whether that thinking was
deliberate or accidental.

~~~
philwelch
If all of your emotions are perfectly consistent with your rationally chosen
values, I seriously envy you.

~~~
javert
I'm sure it's _extremely_ rare (maybe not 100% possible) to have all your
values be fully consistent with one another. (I'm certainly not there.)

Our mental data is stored out of our conscious awareness unless we're actually
thinking about it, and emotions actually come out of that (i.e., out of the
subconscious). So one can't even be aware of all the values held in their
subconscious unless they take a long time and pay a lot of attention to their
emotions. Hence, getting them all to be consistent is no easy feat. Unless one
were to start out with sufficient knowledge to do it right in the first place,
which we don't.

------
nhebb
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
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? ...

~~~
nhebb
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.

~~~
rmc
Bribe them. Give them a promotional code that gives them $5 of one of your
other products, and let them give a $5 discount to one of their friends.
You'll be able to purchase information about your target market.

------
follower
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.

~~~
patio11
_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.)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
[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>).

~~~
whatusername
Don't forget the format. He had slides auto-advancing every 30 seconds.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I saw that after I posted and thought his timing was pretty amazing given
that.

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

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

------
marklittlewood
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
I assume

    
    
      s/understate/overstate/

~~~
marklittlewood
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.

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

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

~~~
patio11
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.

~~~
systemtrigger
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.

~~~
mechanical_fish
Auto advance _is_ going a bit too far. It's a recipe for mediocrity. Nobody
can time transitions that regularly, and missing beats are ugly and painful.

I'd rather see a rule: Advance the slide within X seconds or it will auto
advance. Then limit the number of words, or something, instead of the number
of slides.

~~~
Poiesis
It's not that hard, really. If you memorize your presentation you can reliably
get within a few seconds. Most of the transitions don't require pinpoint
timing accuracy, anyway.

It's really common to overlook the amount of time that will be eaten up by
applause/laughter, though. Don't forget to give yourself some breathing room
for that sort of thing, particularly if your speaking format penalizes you in
some fashion for going over time.

------
bearwithclaws
Very impressive, Patrick! Love the energy and humor.

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

~~~
kroger
"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...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/10/15/lessons-learned-at-business-of-
software-2010/)

------
marklittlewood
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.

------
davidw
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.

~~~
patio11
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."

~~~
marklittlewood
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/>

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

------
keyle
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.

------
jasonlotito
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.

------
jenndox
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!

------
marklittlewood
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/>

------
dutchrapley
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)

------
jwwest
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.

~~~
patio11
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.

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

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

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

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

I don't anymore.

------
jdp23
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 ...

------
marcamillion
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!

------
sdizdar
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.

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

------
chapel
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.

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

~~~
ugh
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...](http://www.slideshare.net/patio11/software-for-underserved-
markets)

~~~
patio11
Here you go:

[http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/blog-
images/hn/selling-t...](http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/blog-
images/hn/selling-to-women.png)

------
Vivtek
Fan _tas_ tic presentation!

------
some1else
Business of Software is the best for sharing these videos. Thanks Joel/BoS!

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

~~~
count
It's from the Old Spice commercials.

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

------
akshat
Sorry for the karma bait title :)

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

Great video, thanks for posting.

------
code_acdc
Very interesting prespective

------
dawgr
Expect a surge in period tracker web apps.

------
mistermann
Doesn't work on iPhone?

