
Minimum Viable Personality - robert-boehnke
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/09/minimum-viable-personality.html
======
paulkoer
Was this meant to be funny or demonstrate a lot of personality? (as in: you
will endure all this rough English because the message is so important). I am
probably not getting the humor but I found it an obnoxious read. All this to
tell you "Don't be boring - do something different"? I could imagine a much
better article on that topic.

~~~
dhimes
One thing this blog post highlights strongly, albeit accidentally, is that if
you are going to have a personality it is important to have the _right_
personality for your market. Having the wrong personality can set you back in
ways ranging from not being taken seriously- and therefore having a greater
hill to climb, to being offensive- and therefore being locked out of your
market/audience.

This blog post reads closer to something that I expect to see on a joke or
casual chat forum than something I expect to see on a VC's blog.

Having said that, I also think the message is spot-on. In particular, I
thought the advice under "How not be boring" was clear, simple, and
compelling.

~~~
brlewis
I think you're right that the wrong personality can set you back, but disagree
that this post is an illustration of it.

Another of Fred's posts a few days also had spot-on advice relevant to the HN
community. It never made it to the front page:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3025690>

This one being so much more successful illustrates one of three things: (1)
the personality helped or (2) people think the content in this post is more
interesting than that one was or (3) pg fixed the problem that makes it harder
for items to reach the front page if they're submitted too early in the
morning Pacific time.

~~~
dhimes
The reason it illustrated the hazards of a "wrong personality" not because it
harmed Fred's particular brand, but because it was so startling that the
reader can immediately see how having a "wrong personality" can have a lasting
impact. This isn't a problem for Fred (except possibly for new readers), but
could be for someone who is still trying to build his brand.

In other words, if this _were_ the personality of the blog (or, say, if Zed
Shaw's online personality were the personality of the blog), online readers
would have a different impression of Fred Wilson the VC.

 _This one being so much more successful_

Only if the sole purpose of the blog was to get attention and create
discussion as to the writing style of the blog.

~~~
brlewis
I did choose to measure success by upvotes. Are you saying that people are
upvoting this article because of discussion as to the writing style?

~~~
dhimes
No. But I would venture that I _wouldn't_ necessarily choose to measure the
success of a blog by its upvotes on HN. Especially when, as it was when I
first commented, that the majority of comments were about the writing style
and were negative.

------
martinkallstrom
This was the most helpful article I found on HN this week. Not joking either,
I'm mucking about with product design for which this was spot on. And it was
performed (I find no better word) with personality.

~~~
capdiz
I liked "EVERYONE CARE AND TALK ABOUT PRODUCT YOU WIN". Kind of reminds me of
when ma kid brother had literally droped out of school and we as a family
seemed to care and talk about him now he just graduated from Uni. He won and
we won.

------
sneak
I think Spolsky does this best, even though I can't quite pin down how.

His company doesn't have a trendy name, he doesn't really have a gimmick
(other than being a clear and prolific and useful writer, which is not a
gimmick), but he's reasonably celebrated.

In the context of this "don't just be useful, have personality" idea, what's
his personality? It must exist, because the following that he's built points
to it, but I can't identify it directly, sort of like a marketer who you've
heard great things about but don't know where. (Obligatory xkcd comic link to
be posted by someone else.)

Note: I'm not saying he has no personality, just that I can't point out what
makes it come to the forefront, because it's subtle. I love the guy, but don't
know why I love his site so much more than, say, jwz's. Maybe it's the implied
profitability of his software business, versus the "I sell beer because I hate
computers" message?

~~~
izak30
Joel is funny. not comically funny, but enjoyably funny, such that you can
almost always get through a post or interview or whatever without feeling
labored.

Joel always brings in metaphors or stories from worlds outside development
(only sometimes funny). Many stories still go back to the Army, or his first
job at the bread factory, but the recurring stories make you feel like you
know him, you know his past, his experience at Microsoft. You know his whole
personality through his vast writing, and it's all masked in "clear and
prolific and useful" writing.

You feel like he's an expert, because you didn't notice that he's always
injecting personality, where, an example from AVC's comments is Mailchimp, who
makes their entire brand about a single chimp.

It will be hard for Fog Creek to keep their brand after Joel leaves, but it
won't be hard for Mailchimp

~~~
Benjo
Yes, Joel is very funny, but not in an overbearing, obvious way.

In an old essay on software specs [1] he states: _one of the easiest ways to
be funny is to be specific when it's not called for_

I've noticed that he does this a lot. All the time. Sometimes too much, like
in hginit.com, which I did not find that amusing. But most of the time he is
spot on.

[1] <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000033.html>

------
nhangen
I love Fred, and I love his blog, but I couldn't make it through that post.

~~~
fredwilson
the fake grimlock is an acquired taste. but once you grok him, you can't
believe how good he is

~~~
nhangen
I knew it had to be good to be given a guest post slot, but I just couldn't
understand the purpose of the format. Now that I know what a grimlock is, the
writing style makes perfect sense.

------
mannicken
People like a degree of anthropomorphism in, well, anything. But when
designing things with personality, keep in mind that there's, what I call, a
valley of creepiness which happens when you add too much realism. E.g. it's
probably okay to have a coffee-machine that kind of looks like an animal, but
it's not okay to have that coffee-machine defecate perfectly realistic pieces
of shit on your carpet.

Universal Principles of Design calls it the uncanny valley:
[http://books.google.com/books?id=zXAx9_Y8GiEC&lpg=PA243&...](http://books.google.com/books?id=zXAx9_Y8GiEC&lpg=PA243&ots=1iPwewHla8&dq=universal%20principles%20of%20design&pg=PA243#v=onepage&q&f=false)

------
harrisreynolds
This is basic "How People Think" 101. People like HOT, INTERESTING, SEXY.
People also like FUNNY! Which is why this article was BRILLIANT.

------
gavanwoolery
I like the occasional "common sense" article as much as the next guy, but this
was a little bit too obvious, vague, and uninformative. Make a product that is
interesting that has meaning and people like. Wow, really? Wait, I've got a
better strategy, that is even more straight to the point: Make money, get
rich.

Making something that people care about is a goal, not a strategy.

------
ghc
I cannot begin to express how much this made me think. In preparation for my
own launch coming up, I'm looking at it and wondering why I've spent so much
time of Minimum Viable Product when the personality just won't cut it. The
guys at Hipmunk posted something to this affect a while ago, but it didn't
have the weight of this.

But how does one launch a product with a personality? As a developer, not a
designer, I'm at a loss...

~~~
Vandy_Travis
I think it has to develop. You can't slap it on like it's a feature, because
authenticity is one of the most important components of personality/voice.

I basically try to avoid squashing the personality. Just by not thinking like
a PHB, or a corporate manager, I seem to avoid being bland. And I try to have
fun as I'm developing something.

Also, its better to be personal than impersonal (contrary to what I was taught
about writing essays).

------
ajaycancherla
Totally love this article! Your company and your product have to BE ABOUT
SOMETHING!!! Why should people care about you as opposed to the hundred of
apps that launch everyday? You have to represent an idea. You have to
represent possibilities.

------
Monkeyget
This reminds me of this TED talk :
[http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspi...](http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html)

Sell by saying who you are, not what you do.

------
rheide
I read the whole thing in the Hulk's voice.

~~~
mcantor
For me it was (somewhat inexplicably) the voice of Morbo, the prodigiously-
foreheaded newscaster alien from Futurama.

------
bgrissom
Rework.

------
rajpaul
"webcopy that sells" speaks about a lot of this, and other ideas on how to
communicate to users.

[http://www.amazon.com/Web-Copy-That-Sells-
Revolutionary/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Web-Copy-That-Sells-
Revolutionary/dp/0814413048)

woot.com is a great example of how to sell through persionality, and not by
being a sales person, which doesn't seem to work as well on the net.

------
NY_Entrepreneur
How does this apply to Google search, Yahoo, Facebook, Dell, Asus, Intel,
StackOverflow, Hacker News, Google News, YouTube, Kingston Memoriy, Seagate,
Cisco, Verizon Superpages, C|Net, Twitter, FourSquare?

